


Life's Greatest Treasure - Book I

by JuweWright



Series: Life's Greatest Treasure [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Book 1: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, F/M, Gen, Podfic Available, Ravenclaw Draco, Ravenclaw Fred, Ravenclaw Hermione
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-22
Updated: 2016-09-06
Packaged: 2018-03-31 18:53:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 40,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3988936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JuweWright/pseuds/JuweWright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“But you did not wish to be in Ravenclaw”, Hermione said with disbelief in her voice. “How can they even consider this? Your family has always been in Slytherin. All your friends are in Slytherin.”<br/>Draco looked up until he met her eyes. He forced a half-smile on his lips.<br/>“All my friends except one. Hurry up. We shouldn't be late to our first lesson.”</p><p>The Sorting Hat has for centuries been a reliable tool to sort the pupils into the four houses of Hogwarts. But what happens, if there is a glitch that makes the son of a well-known family, who have always been proud Slytherins, end up in Ravenclaw?</p><p>This is "Philosopher's Stone" with a twist. My idea is to end up with a series of seven stories in total. Posting of CoS is going to start in December 2015.</p><p>EDIT in September 2016: I am making a podfic for this :-) Go to the last chapter to check it out!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Boy on the Train

**Author's Note:**

> **Book I - Chapter 1 – The Boy on the train**

“Okay darling, do you have everything?”

“Yes mum.”

“Got all your books? Quills? Wand? Cauldron?”

“She's the most organized person in our family, honey. Of course she has everything.”

Hermione smiled, hugged her dad, kissed her mum on the cheek and boarded the train whilst balancing a huge suitcase and several smaller items that had not fit into it. She had read about a charm that made things bigger on the inside. Invisible enlargement they called it. She hoped she would be able to try out some of the charms she had read about soon. It was just tedious that it had said in the letter that under age witches and wizards were forbidden from using magic when at home. She bet that none of the kids that had magic parents actually followed that rule. She had done some research on it when they had been in that magnificent bookstore in Diagon Alley and she had found out that they could not really trace who had cast a spell, they could only determine where it had been cast. So if you lived surrounded by a bunch of grown up wizards, you could pretty much practice as much as you wanted to. She waved at her parents on the platform from one of the windows in the aisles. They looked a bit forlorn between all these people in robes. But they smiled brightly. They had been happy for her, happy that she would finally not be the oddball any more but that there was a place where children like her could learn how to use their skills properly.

She waited until the train had pulled away from the station and she could not see her family any more before she started to look for a compartment. The first and second one were full. In the third one there was a bunch of kids who looked her age and – well – as if they knew what they were doing. She thought this might be a great place to start to make new friends so she pushed the door open.

“Hello. I'm Hermione Granger”, she said and pointed to the empty seat next to the window. “Is that seat taken or can I sit there.”

There were four boys and one girl in the compartment and they all stared at her with curious expressions on their faces.

“You're Muggle born aren't you?”, one of the boys, a wide-shouldered huge boy, asked.

She nodded.

“Yeah I am. You can probably tell. I have read an awful lot over the summer to be prepared, but it's still all so new.”

For some reason she could not really understand all of them started giggling. Finally the boy at the window, who had very white-blond hair and wore a neat button down shirt and black trousers instead of jeans and a sweatshirt, held up his hand. All the others fell silent immediately. So he was the leader of this group. She wondered how he had achieved to be in this position. The boy with the black hair who was sitting next to him was much taller and the guy opposite looked as if he could knock people out with a single blow.

“Blimey she's got some balls. Come on in, Hermione. Take a seat!”, the white-blond kid said.

She had hardly pushed her suitcase up on the baggage rack and turned to sit down, when he held out his hand.

“Draco Malfoy”, he said. “Nice to meet you. The big guy there is Vince Crabbe, the small idiot next to him who is counting his money to see whether he can afford to buy all of the chocolate frogs from the trolley is Greg Goyle, this Italian darling here is Blaise and our quota girl with the dark ninja goth look is Pansy.”

As if on cue all the others held out their hands as well to shake Hermione's.

“Nice to meet you”, they echoed Draco's sentence.

*~*~*~*~*

“So which house do you think you will end up in?”, asked Draco after the trolley had been round and they had bought a huge pile of sweets.

Hermione opened her chocolate frog box and stared at the brown animal, which moved just like a real one.

“This is pretty amazing spellwork”, she murmured. The frog jumped, bumped against the window and landed in Draco's lap, its feet waving through the air helplessly.

He looked at it with a frown.

“You know, Hermione, I have never actually thought about it, but you are absolutely right. I guess none of us will be able to create a chocolate frog in the first three years of school. If you grow up with these things you just don't notice them any more.”

He took the chocolate frog in his hands. It immediately went rigid. The boy broke it in half and handed one of the pieces to Hermione.

“So, which house?”, he repeated his question.

She nibbled at the chocolate – it just tasted like ordinary chocolate which was kind of an anticlimax – and thought for a moment. Of course she had learnt about the houses during the summer. But although there seemed to be clear differences which character traits each of the founders preferred for his students, there seemed also to be a lot of overlap. What happened to someone who was equally loyal and smart and thus could end up both in Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw? What if someone was a pure blood and at the same time extremely courageous and qualified for Slytherin as well as for Gryffindor? She thought that this whole sorting was more of a pro-forma thing, a nice little tradition. In the end they were only children. Their brains had not even gone through the restructuring that took place in puberty. You could hardly determine where the path of an eleven year old child would lead.

“I am not really sure”, she said. “It could be any of them.”

  
“You must have a preference”, teased Draco gesturing around the compartment. “ _We_ all have one.”

“Yeah”, said Blaise, “or our families have. Can I have your chocolate frog card, Hermione?”

She threw the wrapper at him and he caught it, howling with delight a second later.

  
“Nicholas Flamel. Awesome! I thought I'd never get him.”

“What do you mean with: your families have preferences?”, asked Hermione curiously.

Pansy had finally managed to open the bag of Bertie Bott's every flavour Beans and was turning a yellow one between her fingers.

“Well. Some wizarding families have been sorted into the same houses for generations”, she explained. “Do you think this is lemon-yellow or is it too dark? The last time I thought I got lemon, it was cod liver oil. It was disgusting.”

Gregory Goyle flinched and pulled a face.

“Think it looks too dark for lemon”, he said.

“You can have it then”, said Pansy holding out her hand in front of his mouth.

The boy licked the small bean off her palm and shuddered.

“Lemon”, he said. “I _hate_ lemon.”

“Which house do your families belong to?”, asked Hermione.

This was easier to understand. Family, tradition, blood-ties. It was ridiculously old fashioned but so was a lot of the stuff she had learned about this new world she was about to enter.

“Slytherin”, said Draco with a grin. “We're all of us from Slytherin families. Bet we'll all end up there as well.”

Hermione frowned. Slytherin was the one house she had already eliminated from her list. Salazar Slytherin had been slightly too interested in keeping Muggle borns out of the wizarding society. She had expected the students of that house to sport a similar attitude but Draco and his friends had been welcoming and friendly even though they had immediately seen she was Muggle born. A little pang of sadness crossed her mind when she realized chances were pretty high she would not end up in the same house with this group. Did people from different houses hang out together? Would they even want to do that?

*~*~*~*

The journey to the castle was wet and weird. The half giant who led the way seemed to be all right enough though not the brightest man on the planet.

“It's tradition to get to the castle in boats when you first come here and to leave in boats after you graduated”, Draco explained in a low whisper as the small vessel made its way over the dark lake towards the great castle.

“But it's _raining_!”, Hermione responded grumpily, her arms folded in front of her chest. “If they want half of the students to start term in the hospital wing with a bad lung infection, this is probably the way to go.”

Draco laughed and clapped her shoulder from behind.

“It's a shame we won't be in the same house, Hermione. You'd be enormous fun to have around.”

So that was probably the answer to the question whether there was any chance of the Slytherins letting her be part of their club.


	2. The Glitch

**Book I - Chapter 2 – The Glitch**

There was a boy with a toad in their year who was a bit of an idiot but also incredibly polite. His name was Neville. Hermione decided she liked him. She helped him find the animal which was an eager and frequent escapee and had hidden between all the luggage right after they had gotten off the train. Neville gave her the biggest smile in return and promised her a chocolate frog. There was also – and these news had spread like wildfire – none other than Harry Potter, the boy who lived, in their year. There was a lot of fuss going on about that. She was interested in meeting him as well, of course. Who did not want to meet the boy whom Lord Voldemort had not been able to kill?

When they finally met, though. It was hardly the way she had expected it to be. He was just a boy, like a million other boys. He had that lightning-shaped scar on his forehead, okay, but there was nothing special about him and his broken glasses and baggy clothes that seemed to be hand-downs from an older – and bulkier – brother. Her and Draco ended up standing next to Harry and a red-haired boy when they waited for the door to the Great Hall to open. Draco held out his hand and introduced himself as well as Crabbe, Goyle and Hermione. The dark haired boy was about to take the hand he was offered but his friend bent down to whisper something in his ear and he pulled his hand back as if he had been burnt.

Draco looked slightly hurt for a second, then sneered and murmured something that sounded a lot like “arrogant little brat”.

 

*~*~*~*

 

The Great Hall was pretty impressive, even if you had absorbed the descriptions in “Hogwarts a History” and knew every little thing about it including who had come up with the idea to enchant the ceiling so it looked like the sky outside. It was huge and reminded Hermione of the interior of old gothic cathedrals.

In front of the teacher's table, which stood at the opposite end of the room and faced the four long house tables, there was a single chair on which lay an old battered hat.

“This”, explained Draco in a whisper whilst they walked down the aisle following the billowing cloak of Professor McGonagall, “is the sorting hat. You have to put it on and it tells you in which house you belong.”

Hermione frowned.

“But it's... just a magic hat”, she murmured.

“It was bewitched by the four founders to sort the pupils according to their preferences. It's not infallible but as close as you can get to abiding their will a few hundred years after they died.”

Hermione shrugged. It still seemed strange to have a magic hat decide over their future paths in life.

When her name was called, she stepped forward with firm feet, sat in the chair and closed her eyes. The hat was so big it slid over her ears and down to the tip of her nose.

“Interesting”, she heard a voice say. “Lots of things in this head that could qualify you for any of the houses. But I am going to go for the obvious choice with you, girl: RAVENCLAW!”

The Ravenclaw take applauded when she sat down next to a red head who looked a bit older than her. He grinned widely and poured her a glass of pumpkin juice, clanked his one against it and held out his hand.

"I'm Fred”, he introduced himself. “Charmed to meet you. Welcome to the brainy side of life. Don't worry, we have just as much fun as anyone here. We just tend to do so and get good marks at the same time.”

Hermione smiled at him and also at some of the others that welcomed her. Out of the new students, Anthony Goldstein, Terry Boot, Stephen Cornfoot, Mandy Brocklehurst, Michael Corner and Kevin Entwhistle had already been sorted into Ravenclaw.

Anthony and Michael were sitting right opposite Hermione and Fred. They could not have been more different although they shared the dark brown hair. Michael was tall and the way he talked and moved told a story of utter self-confidence. Anthony on the other hand was slender, wore a pair of thick glasses and sat with his back bent as if he wanted nothing more than to hide under the table. Hermione tried to make small talk with Anthony but failed. Michael did not listen to anything she said but was blatantly staring at Mandy Brocklehurst who had started a lively conversation with Terry Boot and was playing with her long blond straight hair. She had hair to die for, Hermione thought with a pang of envy. She had always hated her unruly curls.

Then the head called out Draco's name. The boy looked smug. His friends, Crabbe and Goyle had already joined the Slytherin table under the hooting of their house mates and some boo-ing from the Gryffindors. He sat down and Hermione expected the hat to take less than a second to pronounce the house of his family – but the hat took it's time and when the slit at its front finally opened, it was not to proclaim Draxo Malfoy a Slytherin.

“RAVENCLAW”, the hat cried out.

A few gasps around the tables could be heard. Hermione saw Professor Snape actually stand up as if in protest. Draxo's smug smile had vanished. He was white as a sheet and had to be escorted to their table by one of the prefects. Hermione shifted a bit towards Fred to make space for the white blond boy. When Draco recognized her, he found his speech again.

“It's wrong”, he said. “It's just wrong. My father...”, he couldn't continue, because the sobs finally broke their way out of his throat and he hid face in his arms.

Hermione patted his back.

“Is there any kind of... procedure?” she asked. “I mean...?”

Fred shook his head.

“His whole family's a bunch of pure-blood fanatics and has been in Slytherin. But no, there's no way to re-sort people. We call it glitches. It used to happen once in a decade but I think now they will have to get it checked”, he winked.

“Happened in my case, too. I belong to that lot on the Gryffindor table. Not difficult to tell, really.”

Hermione followed the direction in which he pointed and almost spit out her juice.

“But... but...”

Fred shrugged.

“Yep. We're twins, George and I. Sorted into different houses although no Weasley was ever in another house than Gryffindor and although Percy - the tall, lanky idiot with the Prefect batch who is walking around as if he's swallowed a CleanSweep Seven – is ten times smarter than me. Doesn't make sense. My folks are fine with it, though.”

He shot Draco a pitying look. The boy was still sobbing.

“I fear his family might not be so open-minded.”

 


	3. Potions and Broomsticks

**Book 1 - Chapter 3 – Potions and Broomsticks**

Hermione was excited for her first day of school. Her schedule did not look too crammed but there was so much to look forward to. While Fred loaded his plate with a second serving of bacon and scrambled eggs, she checked her schedule again. The Ravenclaw first years only had potions class in the morning and History of Magic and Transfiguration in the afternoon. In potions, they were paired up with the Hufflepuffs. Hermione had already learned that there was a general understanding that Hufflepuff was not the home of wit and wisdom, but she was nonetheless looking forward to getting to know more people.

She let her gaze wonder up and down the table. Draco had still not come down for breakfast. It was weird how much she cared for him. She didn't even know him after all. But the sorting glitch had thrown him off balance and he needed a friend even if it was just a Muggle born girl whom he had first met not even 24 hours ago.

“Hmmm... mione you should eat something. I know it's all super exciting, but I can't afford you to end up in the hospital wing on your first day. Might reflect badly on me if you end up there because you fainted due to too low blood sugar levels. Madam Pomfrey already has me on her black list for selling slightly altered lemon drops to a few Syltherins at the end of last term.”

Fred started loading her plate as well and Hermione obediently dug in. She was hungry after all. And this was all so exciting. Still, she had to suppress a sigh of relief when Draco finally appeared in the seat next to her. He smiled when he met her eye. She formed the question “all right?” without a sound and he shrugged.

When the owls arrived with the post, one huge black animal with shining black feathers landed on their table and skidded to a halt right in front of Draco's plate.

“Good God”, murmured Fred when he saw the huge red envelope. “First day at school and you got yourself a Howler. I am impressed. Even George and I did not managed that.”

Draco's hands trembled as he began tearing the paper.

"What's a Howler?”, Hermione asked her older friend in a whisper.

Fred grinned.

“You'll find out in a second. I'd recommend you cover your ears.”

*~*~*~*

 

“Seriously. They should be a little more understanding and supportive. They are your parents. They raised you. They must be aware of the fact that it's not your fault”, Hermione steamed as they made their way to the dungeons where their first potions class would be taking place.

Draco was walking next to her. He still looked white as a sheet. That Howler had been nasty. It had been so loud that every single student in the Great Hall could hear his mother's voice yelling at her only son.

“YOU ARE A DISGRACE!”, Narcissa Malfoy had droned.

The word “ashamed” had been used more than once but what had had the worst impact on the boy had been the simple last sentence:

“YOUR FATHER IS VERY DISAPPOINTED.”

He was not crying this time. He was only quiet. Hermione believed this to be worse than yesterday's breakdown. She was not sure how to handle this situation, so she had kept talking ever since they had left their table.

“It could be my fault”, Draco said suddenly.

“How?”, she stopped mid stride.

“Perhaps something is wrong with me. Perhaps there's something in me that is not worthy of being in Slytherin... but I guess my parents react like this because...”, he took a deep breath.

“They probably think I did this on purpose.”

“But...”

“The hat follows the wishes of the students sometimes. If it is torn between two options, you can get it to pick the choice you prefer.”

“But you did not wish to be in Ravenclaw”, Hermione said with disbelief in her voice. “How can they even consider this? Your family has always been in Slytherin. All your friends are in Slytherin.”

Draco looked up until he met her eyes. He forced a half-smile on his lips.

“All my friends except one. Hurry up. We shouldn't be late to our first lesson.”

*~*~*~*

Professor Snape had the reputation to favour his own house, Slytherin, above all the others. He also had the reputation of having applied for the Defense Against the Dark Arts post more often than any other person in history. He never got his dream position though but had been Potions Master for quite a while now.

He read out the names of all the students that should be in class and hesitated for a second, before he came to Draco's.

Snape's nose was the dominant feature in his pale face which was surrounded by black, greasy hair that looked as if it needed a good cut and a good wash – not necessarily in that order.

“Try to suppress your urge to shove any bit of knowledge you ever came across in everybody's face while you're face to face with Snape”, Fred had advised Hermione. “Whilst others might think your enthusiasm is quite charming, he will consider it... exhausting.”

She found it incredibly difficult to follow this advice and once or twice her hand shot up instinctively when Snape asked for the main ingredient of the Draught of Living Death and whether anyone knew where a Bezoar could be found.

She was not the only one though. There were two or three others who were eager to show they were well prepared for school. One of them was Michael Corner. And while Hermione had the sense to sit down on her hands and bite her tongue, Michael did not notice the disgust that became visible on Professor Snape's face whenever the pupil blurted out another answer which he had memorized word by word from “Magical Draughts and Potions”. When the boy finally ended up giving an incomplete answer, Snape was all too happy to take 5 points for his “brainless babbling”.

They managed not to lose any House Points for Ravenclaw in the end though. Snape declared Hermione's and Draco's attempt at the Cure for Boils “adequate” which was a huge compliment. The smoke rising from their potion was too dark though, violet rather than pink.

“Are you able to read instructions, Miss Granger?”, Snape snarled.

She nodded.

“In that case, you will have to learn to follow them as well. You clearly did not crush the snake fangs into a fine enough powder. In contrast to most of the other forms of magic, in Potions, failure in the beginning can never be amended by anything you do afterwards.”

She nodded again and made a mental note that “fine” meant “after the powder already looks like dust, crush it for another five minutes”.

“Anyways. As you managed to make a potion that might actually cure boils though it's not as strong as it could be, I am going to award Ravenclaw 5 points... and I will have to take 10 points from Hufflepuff for the cauldron that Mr MacMillan and Miss Abbott turned into a bubbling mess of molten metal.”

He turned on the spot and let the puddle between Hannah's and Ernie's feet vanish with a nonchalant wave of his wand before walking off to the next couple of students.

“What do you think of him?”, Draco murmured when they packed up their things.

Hermione grinned.

“He's brilliant. Not sympathetic but brilliant. I think I will love this class.”  


*~*~*~*

She would never love flying though.

Draco was a natural, of course. It must be one of the things that Wizard-kids learnt as toddlers just as Muggle-kids learnt to ride a bike at an early age. Even Anthony, who always looked as if he would burst into tears the next minute, had managed to stay on his broom longer than she had. Madame Hooch had shaken her head and tried to hide her laughter. Then she had told Draco that he was an exceptionally good flyer.

“I bet you will make the Quidditch team next year”, she had said.

Now Draco walked around his chest swollen with pride and told anyone who wanted to hear it and anyone who didn't that he was the “most impressive flyer Madame Hooch has seen in a decade”.

He had gotten some of his confidence back, after Theo and Blaise had come round to their table in the Great Hall and asked him whether he wanted to come out to the lake on the weekend and try to find out whether it was true what the rumours said, that there were Merpeople living in the lake.

“Of course there are no Merpeople living in that lake”, Hermione had chipped in from the sidelines. “The lake's no salt water. Merpeople only dwell in salt water. If there's anything living in that lake it's Lakepeople.”

Theo had grinned at her.

“Okay, little Miss Know-it-all. Wanna tag along to find out?”

Her surprise must have been obvious, because Blaise started cackling.

“Merlin's beard you two. What did you expect? Did you think I'd drop my best childhood friend over a hat-glitch? And you, Granger. You should be way too clever to believe all those people that tell you Slytherins are evil people that eat Muggleborns for breakfast.”

So Draco and Hermione would be meeting a bunch of Draco's old friends on Sunday. Hermione was happy for her new companion. He had believed all of them would turn their backs on him. Now that they had not, he had become eager to get back on terms with his parents as well. So in the evening, he finally sat down with a piece of parchment and a quill and wrote a letter to his parents telling them about the points he had won in Potions and his triumph during the flying lesson.

Hermione had finished the homework for Snape and was almost on her way up to her dormitory, when Fred held her back.

“You should be careful”, the red head said with a sideways glance to Draco.

“I know you're friends and all and his friends seem to be okay as far as I can tell, though Goyle should really have ended up in Hufflepuff. But his family... they were all Death Eaters.”

Hermione stared at him. She had read the term Death Eaters somewhere. It rang a faint bell, but she could not put her finger on it.

“Death Eaters?”, she whispered.

Fred shook his head.

“We'll talk about this some other time. I know you've got plans for Sunday, but what about Saturday? We could go to the library and I'll show you some really awesome books. There's a wagon-load of stuff that doesn't get covered in class. And afterwards we can sneak down to the kitchen and get some hot chocolate from the house elves.”

Hermione's head formed the question what a house elf was, but she decided she'd find out soon enough anyways.

“Okay”, she said. “Saturday it is.”  


“Mind if my brother tags along?”

“George? Your twin?”

“No, Percy the arrogant git, so he can spoil all the fun. Of course I mean George.”

“Sure, I'd be happy to meet him.”

“Awesome.”  


She grabbed her bag and walked towards the staircase to the girl's dormitories.

“Sleep tight guys”, she said to both of her friends.

“Good Night, Hermione”, they answered simultaneously.

 


	4. Books and Brothers

**Book I – Chapter 4 – Books and Brothers**

 

“And of course Filch caught them out.”

“Sounds exactly like our little brother.”

“Prone to get into trouble.”

“But not wise enough to know how to maneuver himself out of it again.”

 

Fred and George flanked Hermione whilst walking up one of the moving staircases. George had just finished to deliver the newest Gryffindor gossip. Harry Potter and the twins' younger brother Ron (whom Hermione still despised with all her heart because he had been so stuck up when Draco had offered Harry his hand in friendship) had gotten into trouble with the caretaker already. Professor Dumbledore had declared the corridor on the third floor forbidden territory for anyone who did not want to die. Obviously neither Ron nor Harry had really intended to break that rule.

“Moving staircases. It takes a while to get the hang on the pattern, remember? In our first year we once ended up in that strange dead end that nobody ever seemed to come to and which had all these empty frames instead of pictures on the walls.”

Fred nodded and shuddered.

“That was like the worst place in this castle I have ever been to and I have been in Filch's private rooms with all these handcuffs hanging from the ceiling and the Iron Maiden in the corner and that weird stain on the floor that looked way too much like blood. The only thing that might actually be worse than that corridor is Snape's bedroom – which I have not been to and hopefully never will have to go to.”

“Spare me that mental image”, George howled.

“He's not as bad as you pretend he is”, Hermione murmured.

Fred frowned.

“I know that for some weird reason he has chosen you and Malfoy as his new favourite pets, but believe me Hermione, he is a right pain.”

“He's not sociable or nice or anything like that, I admit”, she said with a sigh. “And I guess he might have his favourites and he might also have people he has a profound dislike for. From what I have heard he kind of seems to hate Harry Potter for no other reason but that he's famous. As if a baby that just survived a killing spell could influence its later fame. But Snape also has his principles and rules and he sticks to them. I think there are far worse people than him in this world.”

The twins refrained from an answer. Fred had been through this with his younger friend more than once and one glance at George was enough to let his brother know there was no chance Hermione would become part of the Hate-Snape-Club any time soon.

They had reached the library and Hermione pushed the door open. Madame Pince just looked up for a split second to recognize the young witch she had already marked down as a really nice and really considerate bookish girl. Then she noticed the twins and her head shot up again.

“No loud talking, no eating and no spell practice between the shelves”, she hissed before going back to her reading.

“What was that about?”, Hermione asked in a whisper as they made their way through the aisles.

Fred rolled his eyes.

“She caught us practicing the Expelliarmus spell once during our first year... there was some damage to the books and she did not appreciate it although we tidied everything up again, repaired the bindings and all. - Aha.”

He pulled one of the ladders over to the section they were facing. In a second he was up there and had pulled out one of the biggest volumes there were. It was a huge leather-bound thing.

“Weighs about a ton”, he said before handing it to Hermione who took a look at the cover.

“Hogwarts, a History?”, she asked frowning. “But I've...”

“Already read that”, the twins concluded her sentence in unison. They tended to do that a lot. There was also the fact that they could end each others sentences. Hermione had already noticed how strong their bond was on the way here.

George: “But, my dear Hermione, you have read the new version. The one that has been rewritten in large sections”

Fred: “to make it compliant with what the Ministry deems is safe for people to know. Don't tell anyone I said that. My dad works for them and I don't want him to get the sack over me not keeping my mouth shut. Also... some rather nasty passages about people of influence were simply left out either because they or their heirs asked nicely or because they convinced the editor to do so by making a generous donation.”

George: “and some of the knowledge was deliberately removed.”

Fred jumped off the ladder and grinned.

“This”, he tapped the cover of the book. “Has helped us find about half a dozen hidden passages in the castle before we found other means to figure out where they were and has been a great source of inspiration. But you will find that out for yourself. Let's see what else we can show you. Some potion making? Since you are Snape's new best friend?”

George grinned.

“You're thinking about the same book that I am thinking of, aren't you, brother?”

Fred nodded and George took Hermione's hand without another word, pulling her along to another section of the library and presenting her with another leather bound book that looked way older than any book she had ever held in her hands before. This kind of book was usually found in dim light and behind glass in the Muggle world, if it wasn't locked away in some climate controlled basement.

“Most Potente Potions”, she read and felt an excited rush when she opened the book. The pages were stained and fragile and the font was not the easiest to read, but she could tell from one look into one of the recipes that she was holding a treasure.

“This is very advanced magic”, she said. “There are so many steps. So much that can go wrong.”

The twins shrugged.

“Fred said you're a natural”, exclaimed George in a stage whisper. “He said you're the most talented girl he has met in his whole life.”

Hermione could have sworn that Fred's ears turned slightly red, but he quickly covered it by presenting her with a huge volume on Herbology.

 

***

 

Two hours later they made their way to the kitchen. Hermione felt like she had never been so happy before. She had not been one of the popular kids in primary school. She was bookish, introverted yet keen to show off her knowledge whenever it was possible. This had led to her ending in a corner of the school yard together with the obese girl and the one who never spoke to anyone. She had had friends, of course. Some kids from the neighbourhood had come round to her house regularly to play with her. But none of them would ever have managed to count as “cool”. While she kept listening to George's and Fred's anecdotes she could not help but think that these two were probably as cool as it got. They were funny, they were witty and they seemed to have no fear at all.

“The forbidden forest is forbidden because the parents feel it is unsafe for their children to go into a forest. There are unicorns in there, some centaurs as well, although they live so far on the other side that you hardly ever bump into them. And there's a crazy lot of spiders in one part. We only came across them once and ever since have not gone back to that part of the forest. They're huge. I am pretty sure spiders are not supposed to grow that big. Nasty beasts. Don't really want to meet them at night time.”

“I thought about bringing one for Ron though. Would have been a laugh. He's the most arachnophobic person I know. I mean, one of them can't really do much, it was just the fact that there are so many of them in one spot that gives me the creeps.”

Hermione was excited to meet the House Elves. She had tried to do some research on them after Fred had mentioned them, but she had not found much. It sounded a lot like slavery if you read how the wizards had used House Elves as unpaid workers in their households for centuries but when she had mentioned this to Fred he had laughed and told her, that it was easy to think that way if you were a Muggle but that she might change her mind as soon as she met the kitchen staff at Hogwarts.

Indeed, Hermione did not find them to be a sad and unhappy lot of slaves. House elves were not allowed clothing, but the elves in the kitchen were dressed in togas made of tea towels which were embroydered with the Hogwarts crest that almost looked like a uniform. They seemed to always be busy, rushing here and there. There might have been about a hundred of them in the kitchen, but as they were constantly moving, it was impossible to get an exact count. One of them came up to Hermione with a plate of steaming fresh apple pie on it. They knew the twins and greeted them enthusiastically, calling them Sir and making a huge fuss about them. When George asked whether there was any hot chocolate available it didn't even take five minutes before all three of them had been seated on small but comfortable chairs and handed a huge mug of hot brown liquid.

“Always happy to serve the Messrs Weasley and their friends”, one of them exclaimed with a high voice and bowed.

“Thank you”, said Hermione, smiling down at them and they bowed even deeper.

Fred was right. This was not slavery, this was something else. Although the point that these happy little creatures with their huge ears and eyes and their wrinkly skin did not get paid for their efforts still made her uncomfortable.

“There are wizards who treat their House Elves like scum”, whispered George in her ear. “They love working in Hogwarts because Dumbledore provides for all of their needs. We met him down here once when he had just brought them a box of lemon drops. Usually pupils should not know how to get here, but he was not too shocked to see us.”

“Dumbledore would never be shocked to see us anywhere though”, said Fred who had overheard his brother. “I think we have established our status as the people who know more secrets of this castle than any other person.”

“At least any other person we know”, corrected George.

Fred grinned and sipped his hot chocolate.

When they had finished their drink and eaten some of the pie – it was delicious, Fred leaned back in his chair and fixed his eyes on Hermione.

“So. Let's talk about Malfoy.”

“We are friends.”

“His parents were Death Eaters. At least his father was. I am not sure about Narcissa. She probably has too much style.”

“And Death Eaters are...?”, asked Hermione. The term rang a faint bell, but she could not place it.

“They were the followers of You-know-who”, explained Fred.

Hermione stared. She had read so much over the summer holidays and she was sure she had forgotten a few things again, but she clearly remembered all about the Wizarding War and also about the man who referred to himself as Lord Voldemort, a name that was feared by pretty much all the wizards nowadays. Hardly anyone used it as if it was cursed or as if it would conjure him up again. The Death Eaters of course. They had been his followers, his obedient servants. The disciples of a tyrant. They had tortured people and killed people. If Slytherin students had the reputation not to like Muggle borns, Death Eaters had the reputation to hate them. Lord Voldemort had wanted to clean the wizard community of all Muggle blood. He had chosen pure-blooded wizards as his followers. Muggle-borns were wiped out with a flick of their wands. Hermione remembered how she had shuddered when she had read that paragraph and thanked heavens for the fact that Lord Voldemort had been defeated. The mighty dark wizard had tried to kill Harry Potter who had still been a baby, but for reasons unknown the child had stayed unharmed except for that strange lighning-shaped scar on his forehead. Voldemort had vanished and ever since there had been peace.

“Draco's dad was a Death Eater”, she repeated, not questioning Fred's knowledge in that field. “But why did he... I mean... and his friends...?”

“You mean: Why did Draco and his friends – of whom quite a few are Death Eater children as well - decide to become friends with you and let you sit in the Slytherin compartment on the train?”, George shrugged.

“We don't have the foggiest idea. We just wanted to let you know what kind of family he comes from.”

Hermione gulped. Her eyes rested on Fred's. The older boy smiled openly, a reassuring sight. He lightly touched her hand before he stood up, announcing that it was time to go back to their respective common rooms.

“I have that essay for potions to finish. Snape will probably take house points from us if it's an inch too short, so I should better make up two or three more sentences.”

 

***

 

Half an hour later he was sweating over the parchment, quill in hand, while Hermione was reading the chapter Professor McGonnagall had asked them to prepare for Transfiguration. Suddenly, she slapped the book closed and crossed her arms.

“So what do you think? Should I go to the lake with them tomorrow or not?”, she asked.

The thought had been gnawing at the back of her mind for way too long, so the attempt to make it sound casual just failed miserably. Just then Draco came into the common room carrying a pile of books he had borrowed from the library. He let his loot fall into the next free arm chair before waving at her with a huge smile on his face.

“Got a letter from my mum!”, he shouted, waving it through the air and gesturing for her to come over and have a look at it.

Fred frowned.

“I guess you're safe”, he said. “Just don't let his parents invite you to dinner without a backup.”

She quickly took his hand before she got up to go over to Draco and take a look at the letter and also at the books he had brought.

“Thanks Fred. I will let you and George know if the Malfoys should ever invite me. The two of you are the best backup I can imagine.”

Fred's smile seemed to reach across his whole freckled face from one ear to the other.

 


	5. Malfoy's Mudblood

**Book I - Chapter 5 – Malfoy's Mudblood**

Sunday was a lovely day. Although it was already the 8th of September, it still felt like late summer and almost everyone was outside. People were sitting under trees reading books or doing their homework. Two Hufflepuffs, one of them a guy whom Hermione had already noticed during her first week because of his incredibly good looks, had conjured up a huge chess board and pieces and were playing against each other in the courtyard. Spectators had gathered around them and were shouting helpful or less helpful tips from the sidelines.

Draco stopped short in his stride and frowned.

“Diggory's gonna win that one”, he said after five seconds.

“How can you tell that by just staring at the board?”, Hermione asked.

Draco looked at her as if she had just told him the moon was yellow and made out of cheese.

“You must be kidding me. Hermione Granger, the brightest girl of our age, who managed to transform a match into a needle in her first Transfiguration class ever – and thus became the eternal heroine of Professor McGonagall – does not know how to play chess?”

Hermione shook her head. Draco grinned and signalled her to follow him out of the courtyard.

“Now that's a relief. I was beginning to believe you knew everything and I would always be your idiotic sidekick. I'll teach you. Chess is pretty cool if you play it the wizard way.”

A huge crack sounded from behind them. When Hermione turned around she saw one of the bishop's heads fly through the air and burst into a million tiny pieces when it hit a stone pillar.

“Damned”, said Draco. “That means Smith stands an actual chance now. Always knew Diggory was dumb as a doornail, but that one was the stupidest move he could have made.”

They walked down to the lake passing Anthony Goldstein who was lying in the grass and biting his tongue over “Magical Draughts and Potions”. He waved quickly when Hermione said hello.

When they reached the shore, the whole Slytherin-lot had already assembled. They stood alone, seperate from other groups. Hermione had already noticed that while it seemed to be common for Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws and Gryffindors to make friends with each other, the Slytherin pupils were usually left out. As if they were outlaws or lepers. It made her sick.

“Hey Hermione!”, Blaize came up to them and hugged her with a jovial smile.

He was followed by Crabbe and Goyle and finally Theo, who looked a bit ruffled.

“Ran into Weasley”, was the only thing they got out of him as an explanation.

“He means he ran into Percy Weasley, the teacher's pet, on the third floor when trying to open a door he should not have tried to open”, Pansy chipped in, taking Hermione's arm as if they were best friends forever.

“I didn't even know I was in the third floor. The staircases...”

“Same thing happened to Harry Potter and Ron Weasley last week”, said Hermione. “Filch was not amused when he caught them.”

“Weasleys”, Blaise murmured making it sound like something disgusting.

Draco grinned.

“Be careful what you say about the Weasley's. Hermione's got a soft spot for the Ravenclaw-weasle.”

Hermione boxed him in the ribs.

“I don't have a soft spot for Fred. He's a friend. George's all right as well.”

“The twins?”, asked Blaise. “Yeah, they are all right. They have the reputation to be trouble and they hold the record of most detention hours in a year. I guess I could even manage to like them.”

They made their way around the lake down to the part that was hardly ever frequented by students, because you had to push through a thicket to get there. Hermione was happy she was wearing long sleeves. Pansy who had not been so far sighted got some nasty scratches on her arms from the thorny bushes. She only shrugged it off though, saying she had some ointment in her room she could dab on them which would heal them in a second. To Hermione it sounded way too casual not to betray the frequency with which this ointment was used. She knew better than to ask Pansy directly though. After all, they had only met a week ago.

“So”, said Blaise, sitting down on a tree trunk right next to the water's edge. “Let's see about the merpeople or lake people as Miss Granger wants to call them. I did some research. They like music. Anyone up for a song?”

Pansy was the first one who came up with an idea which was rejected by the boys because “seriously Pansy that doesn't sound like music, it sounds like someone being crucio'ed to death.”

“What about you, Hermione?”, Theo asked. “Any good Muggle song you know?”

She felt Draco tense next to her.

“Don't you dare”, the blond boy hissed between his teeth and stared at Theo with a dangerous expression in his eyes.

“Don't you dare bringing the blood purity thing up when she's with us.”

Theo lifted his hands above his head and smiled reassuringly.

“No insult intended, Draco. I was really just asking for a song. One of the guys in second year has a great Muggle music collection. And what do you expect me to do? Make fun of her because she's a Mudblood?”

Draco tensed even more. A small artery on his neck began to pulse right underneath his skin.

“None of us would do that”, Theo went on. “She's a Mudblood yeah. But she's your friend and that's what's important.”

He held out his hand to Hermione.

“No hard feelings?”

She grinned and shook his hand.

“No hard feelings. I have a song.”

~*~*~*~

 

“So you know mermaids in Muggle culture?”

“I guess they might have been less shy once. But the image Muggles have of them is... very different from the reality.”

“I assumed as much after you gasped.”

“I did not think they'd actually come to listen to my horrible singing.”

“Your singing wasn't horrible. You have a nice voice.”

“Thanks. Oh and thank you for not killing Theo.”

“He called you a Mudblood. I should have at least given him a black eye.”

They were sitting in the Slytherin common room. It was almost midnight and most of the other students had already retreated to their dorms which had had the side effect of the most comfy sofa being free for a change. Hermione was incredibly tired and she knew she'd probably regret staying up that long when she had to go to class the next morning especially as Professor Binn's History lessons were supposed to be better than any sleeping draught.

“He's a ghost”, Fred had explained, when she had asked about him. “Nobody knows why he died but we assume he just bored himself to death and never noticed it.”

“Malfoy's Mudbood”, Hermione said. “It's not too bad, I guess. It's like an official nickname.”

“It's a shitty nickname”, Draco insisted and crossed his arms.

 

~*~*~*~

 

“I don't believe it!”

Draco stormed into the common room. Hermione and Fred had both been trying to get their heads round a potions essay (Fred) and the astronomy homework on constellations (Hermione) and started when the boy flung himself onto a chair opposite theirs.

“Mr Super-Potter actually managed to bend the rules and make it into the Gryffindor Quidditch team!”, he announced. “I think I might want to throw up.”

“Feel free to do so”, said Fred. “Just be so kind as to not vomit on this parchment, because this essay has cost me about two hours of my precious youth and Hermione most of her nerves. You must be mistaken about Potter. First years are not allowed to...”

The door flew open and Michael Corner came in, followed by a slightly dishevelled Mandy Brocklehurst.

“Potter made the Quidditch team!”, Corner shouted. “That brat actually made the team. It's so unfair!”

Fred froze. He had taken Draco's exclamation for hallucinations, but now that the news had been confirmed he looked bewildered.

"Which position?”, he asked Draco calmly.

The younger boy howled and beat his fist onto the table making Hermione's inkpot jump.

“Potter's gonna play Seeker for Gryffindor.”

“Wow”, Fred murmured. “That's really crazy. I mean McGonagall can be batshit crazy when it comes to Quidditch but I would never... how did that happen?”

As it turned out, the Gryffindors and Slytherins had started their flying lesson just as the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs had. Neville Longbottom, the boy with the toad, had shown a Rememberall to his friends. Blaise – who had been in a bad mood because his rat had eaten his transfiguration homework – had taken the Rememberall and zoomed off on his broom.

“He's a brilliant flyer, Blaise”, Draco added as a side note. “He knows his business.”

From what Draco had been told by Blaise, he had never intended to do anything but scare Neville a bit and tease him. But Potter and Weasley had decided to join the show and had been oh-so-noble telling him to give the Rememberall back to its owner.

“You know Blaise. He's a good guy but him and Theo... it really gets under their skin if people act the hero. So they started to throw the thing back and forth between them. And then Potter, who has never sat on a broom before, rides right up to them. When Blaise sees him coming he just drops it. Potter dives after it – don't ask me how someone who's never been on a broom knows how to do that – and catches it right before it shatters on the ground. Blaise told me he was impressed and Theo says Potter's a natural. But it's still unfair. I mean, we're all good flyers, Blaise, Theo, me, even Michael isn't bad. And none of us is allowed on the team because there's a rule that forbids it. But of course... if we're talking about Saint Potter, it's different.”

Draco clenched his fist. Hermione and Fred still stared at him in disbelief. Fred stood up.

“It's nothing to do with Harry Potter, Draco. It's a house thing. Gryffindor is short on good players. I saw the try outs and there's no Seeker material in any of the older years. McGonagall is a really bad loser and because this school has always been biased towards preferring Gryffindor over any other house, nobody – not even Dumbledore who's also a former Gryffindor – will say a word against it. Well, except Snape. There will probably be a good row between him and good old Minerva. But she's still going to make Potter their Seeker. If you wanna join me. I'm going to go and vomit now. And afterwards I'm going to ask my brother for permission to put something nasty in his head of house's office.”

 

A./N.: I want to say a biiiig thank you to everyone who is reading along with this and also to the people who wrote such nice comments. I really appreciate to know if you like my stuff (I also appreciate constructive criticism, but writers are all the same, we just love positive feedback because it feeds our souls). Also, whoever put the Potter Wikia together is my new hero. I am trying to reconstruct the first year as close to canon as possible and I have found the PS calendar to be a source of utter and total wisdom.

 


	6. Surprises

**Book I - Chapter 6 – Surprises**

“Hi Hermione.”

Fred swung himself up on the desk next to Hermione's copy of “The Dark Forces – A Guide to Self-Protection” and grinned.

“How come you always know where I am?”, asked Hermione curiously. “I mean. You always show up and you never tell me you went looking for me anywhere else in the castle.”

The red headed boy leaned back and studied a hole in the toe of his right trainer.

“Well. The chances that one will find you in the library are always punishingly high”, he said.

Hermione noticed that his ears had reddened slightly and shook her head. If he did not want to tell her, she would not push it, but she knew he must have some means to figure out where people went in the castle. When she had been looking for Anthony two days earlier because he had asked for her help with Potions, Fred had told her without a second of hesitation to look in the courtyard where he was playing Exploding Snap with Kevin Entwhistle.

Fred had picked up the book and leafed through it.

“You know”, he said. “I used to like Defense Against the Dark Arts last year. It was one of my fabourite subjects. But since Quirrell is teaching it, it's become a chore rather than a treat. It really boils down to the fact that a teacher can make you love a subject if he just teaches it right. And he can ruin it as well. I mean he definitely has a grasp on the subject, but his pedagogical skills are lacking.”

Hermione nodded. Although Quirrell was not half as boring as Binns, he still made it difficult for any student to really become excited about DADA.

“Are you done?”, Fred asked, nodding to the parchment in front of her.

Hermione shrugged.

“More or less.”

“Wanna come along to Quidditch practice?”

It had been a bit of a struggle for both of the twins to get into their respective house teams. They were excellent flyers and their skills were out of question. George blamed it on them having had enough siblings to play against from an early age. But there had been some discussion on whether in a match between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw they would be competitive enough if their brother played on the opposing side. They had proved it to Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick by initiating an impromptu fist fight. Hermione had had to borrow Pansy's ointment afterwards to dab it on the huge gash in Fred's brow. There was still a faint scar left now, but Fred had forbidden her to use the ointment again, because he wanted to wear the distinct reminder of how far he was willing to go to reach his goals. Hermione did not know much about Quidditch nor could she understand the excitement that it caused the boys and Mandy to talk about it, but she knew Fred well enough not to say no to his question. If he wanted her there as support, she would be there.

“Just have to drop my stuff off in the common room”, she said, throwing her book and parchment into her bag. “I'll meet you in the entrance hall.”

She walked up to the Ravenclaw tower. The eagle door knocker arched its neck when she approached.

“Why is there something rather than nothing?”, it asked.

“Because nothing denies its own existence”, Hermione replied and walked into the common room.

She had started to think of the Ravenclaw tower as her home. She loved the common room with its high domed ceiling. In the beginning she had found the dark blue carpet and the dark blue ceiling a bit much, but by now it felt comfortable. The high windows let in enough light for the room never to look gloomy by daylight even if it was raining outside. The two fire places at opposite ends of the circular room were surrounded by comfortable armchairs and there were several desks that students could use to do their homework or play games. The room was almost never empty. There was always someone there who greeted you with a smile when you entered. Ravenclaw students had the reputation to be very ambitious. Hermione considered this might be true, but that ambition never turned into arrogance towards others. The atmosphere in the tower was always friendly and she actually got along with everyone. Mandy could be a bit of a pain when she turned on her “girly” mode – which only happened when Michael Corner was somewhere in hearing distance – but she was clever and nice and she had lent Hermione a stack of novels – penny dreadfuls really – that she said would teach her everything about the Wizarding society. Hermione had come back to her asking if the books described the way things had been about a hundred years ago but Mandy had shaken her head.

Wizarding etiquette is incredibly old-fashioned”, Hermione had complained to Fred. “According to these books, my hanging out with you and Draco more or less means we are engaged.”

Fred had watched the wrestling match between two chocolate frogs he had bewitched so they blew small gusts of flames at each other and melted body parts off each other and only looked up for a second.

“My parents don't give a toss about the rules” he said. “Most families are not that strict any more. Malfoy's family is, though. They're like royalty, you know?”

Hermione dropped her bag in a corner and turned on the spot to hurry out of the common room again just as the door opened and Draco came in, his face white as a sheet.

“Merlin! What happened?”, she asked when he slumped into one of the chairs.

“Third corridor”, Draco said tonelessly. “I know what is in there.”

“What the? How? Why? Did Blaise and Theo...?”

Draco shook his head.

“It was not a conscious decision. The damned staircase. I did not count the floors and they did not lock that door properly. It opened on Alohomora! Everyone in their right minds knows that spell! It's so crazy they did not use a proper protection charm.”

“What's in that corridor?”, Hermione asked, real concern in her voice now.

Draco shuddered.

“A giant dog”, he said. “With three heads. It's a monster. They have a monster in the castle and it's not even properly locked in.”

Hermione shuddered as well, then she pulled herself together and held out her hand.

“We'll talk about this some more later, when you've calmed down a bit. I promised Fred to come to Quidditch training. Do you want to tag along?”

 

~*~*~*~

 

On the 19th of September, a surprise waited for Hermione when she came out of the girl's dormitory. Actually there were several surprises. One of them was that the common room which everyone only passed through in the morning to get to breakfast as quickly as possible, was full of people. Someone had conjured up a garland that spelled out “HAPPY BIRTHDAY HERMIONE” and Fred was waiting for her surrounded by Anthony, Mandy, Michael and some of the other Ravenclaw first years with a huge cake in his hand and an even bigger smile on his face. The second surprise was Draco who was standing a bit aside and was nursing a large bruise that was forming on his forehead.

“Happy Birthday”, Fred exclaimed, handed the cake to Michael for a second and hugged her tightly.

Draco came over as well and smiled.

“What happened to your forehead?”, Hermione whispered when he embraced her.

“Tried to walk into your dorm to be the first to congratulate you”, he whispered back. “Didn't know there's protections in place.”

Hermione laughed and hugged him even tighter.

They trooped down to breakfast together where George and the Slytherins had been waiting. They stood at opposite ends of the Ravenclaw table and eyed each other suspiciously. But after Hermione had greeted them all, she could see George nodding to himself before he walked up to Theo and stretched out his hand.

“Hey, I'm George”, he said. “I'm Fred's twin brother.”

This broke the ice.

Hermione had never seen Slytherin people sit at any other house table. They never mingled. Not even if it was such an informal occasion as breakfast. But it was not their fault, she realized. They had just never been asked.

Now they all sat down at the Ravenclaw table and soon Pansy and Blaise had involved George in a discussion about Quidditch and Fred was absorbed in a conversation with Blaise.

Suddenly, a commotion at the Gryffindor table made Hermione turn her head. Ron Weasley and Harry Potter had stood up and were staring after their class mate Neville who – his head as red as a tomato – was walking over to the Ravenclaw table as well.

“Hey”, he said hesitatingly. “Happy Birthday, Hermione.”

“Thank you, Neville!”, she said with a wide smile. “Take a seat. Have some cake, if you want to.”

Neville shuffled his feet and looked over his shoulder towards the Gryffindor table, from where his mates were still watching. Hermione sighed, then cut off a slice of cake with her knife and placed it on a plate. Suddenly, a thought crossed her mind and she cut off two more slices before handing the plate to Neville.

“Take this with you then”, she said. “And say hello to Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley from me.”

“That was a great move”, George noted following Neville's retreat with his eyes. “You really are one cunning person, Hermione.”

“She'd have been great in Slytherin”, said Blaise raising his glass of pumpkin juice and smiling.

Hermione blushed. She knew this was the biggest compliment he could have made her.

When they made their way to the Transfiguration class room, Draco stopped in his stride and held her back.

“I did not want to do this in front of everyone else. But...”

He rummaged in the pockets of his robe and finally pulled out a parcel wrapped in shiny silver paper.

“Birthday present”, he murmured. “Hope you like it.”

Hermione opened the wrapper carefully. From the weight and form of the parcel it was easy to see that the content was a book of some sort, but she was curious of what Draco might have picked. It was a small volume bound in green linen, clearly an antiquity.

“Alchemy, Ancient Art and Science by Argo Pyrites”, she read and a big smile appeared on her face.

 

~*~*~*~

 

The next morning did not start off as well. When the owl post arrived, a huge parcel was dropped onto the Gryffindor table. Even before Harry Potter to whom it was addressed, opened the wrapper, everybody knew, the boy had received a broomstick. Another broken rule, as no first year was allowed a broom.

Draco and Fred both steamed with anger when the word quickly spread around the room that not only was it a broomstick, but a Nimbus2000. The best model available. Of course.

“I bet that's McGonagall's doing again”, said Fred who had taken to stabbing a roll with his knife instead of just cutting it open.

“When will you throw a dung bomb in her office?”, Draco asked casually.

Fred shrugged.

“Would already have done it. But if she catches me out – and she has caught George and me out almost every single time – she'll probably talk to Flitwick and have me banned from Quidditch training or something like that because of unsportsmanlike behaviour.”

“She's the one who doesn't stick to the rules”, Michael Corner hissed. “It's just because she's an adult and a teacher and Dumbledore's best friend that she gets away with it all the time.”

Hermione wondered whether McGonagall ever considered that her actions led to a general antipathy against Harry Potter rising among the students of the other houses. The boy was not to blame. He was clearly surprised to have received the broom as he had been surprised to have been chosen for the Quidditch team. Surrounded by his Gryffindor supporters he probably didn't even feel the hatred yet that had been kindled in some pupil's hearts. He was famous by accident. If he had been treated like any other pupil, nobody would ever have cared about that. He would have become just one other Hogwarts student. But with this – the clear distinction, the clear difference in treatment – an unfavourable spotlight had been thrown upon him.

When her and Draco met with Pansy and the Slytherin boys that afternoon, she saw Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley come out of the History of Magic classroom and went over to them.

“May I have a word with you, Harry?”

The boy looked up. As the schedules of Gryffindor and Ravenclaw hardly overlapped this year they had not talked much before especially as Ronald Weasley still kindled his abnormal disgust for Draco.

“Yeah, sure”, Harry said.

“Without your shadow?”, Hermione demanded, nodding towards Ron.

Harry hesitated for a moment, then told his friend to meet him in the Gryffindor common room.

“What do you want, Hermione?”

“Are you aware that you have become less than popular with three quarters of this school?”

He stared at her.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I thought you might not have noticed. It's really not your fault and this is why I decided to talk to you. You were chosen as seeker and you were given a broom by someone. I don't really get all the fuss about Quidditch but people are... emotionally involved in that game. They see it as some kind of betrayal that you, as a first year, are allowed to play on your house team. I don't know how far they are willing to go, but if I were you, I'd be careful.”

Harry looked at her with a bewildered expression.

“Are you threatening me?”

“I am trying to warn you. I don't give two cents for Quidditch, but I have friends who are obsessed with it. They see you being treated with privilege and wonder why they aren't treated the same way. I am just worried what this might lead to.”

For a couple of seconds none of them said a word, then Harry held out his hand.

“Thank you, Hermione. Thank you for telling me. I had no idea how this looks in other people's eyes.”

She shook his hand briefly and smiled.

“Just be on your guard. Perhaps I am just imagining things in this matter.”

 

A./N. I tried to figure out the schedules of all the four houses in year one, but JKR really doesn't give you much to go with. I managed to come up with a schedule that is in accordance with the bits and pieces THAT we know. If anyone is interested, I might put it up on DA and link it here. Apart from that: Thanks again for reading, everybody. Next chapter will be Halloween and the troll, so stay tuned for what I will be doing with that.

 


	7. The Troll

**Book I - Chapter 7 – The Troll**

 

On the morning of Halloween, the Ravenclaws gathered in Green House I together with the Syltherin. The weather had turned colder in the last couple of weeks and Hermione had quite happily donned her blue and bronze scarf. Draco had shot a look of disdain at his and left it lying in the Common Room. Hermione had the distinct notion that he would regret it later because his teeth had already been chattering on their way to class.

“You know it's kind of ridiculous how you try to hide away which house you belong to”, she stated when they approached Theo, Crabbe and the others who were waiting for them in front of the green house. “As if anyone would care. Look at them! Look at your friends! They don't give a toss that you've been sorted into the wrong house because of that hat-glitch.”

But she knew this was not entirely true. Although the group still accepted Draco in their midsts – and even had opened up to a Muggle born girl because of him – his status had changed. He had been the head of that group, the leader, the one that everyone else followed. But as Slytherins and Ravenclaws only shared Herbology and Charms classes and the time they could spent together was limited, Theo had taken over from his best friend. It was natural progression really, because Theo had been Draco's confidant from their childhood on. It had to be difficult though, to feel how the old structures had been changed by the glitch. Also, his friends might have accepted Draco's being in Ravenclaw, but his father still had not come round to that fact. Mrs Malfoy sent letters regularly, but his father never even added his best wishes. Narcissa believed it was a matter of time until Lucius would come to grips with the situation. Hermione knew that Draco's biggest problem was his father. When Hermione received another gushing letter from her parents after she had told them about the house points she had won in Potions or how she had managed to transfigure a match into a needle in her first try, she made sure, Draco never was able to read along. He, who was so eager to please his dad and to make him proud of his only son, did not have to know that she had parents who gave her all of that without her particularly trying.

They said their hellos and entered the green house. Hermione did not like the Herbology classes much although she hoped they would become more interesting in their second year. Fred had told her that the second years were allowed to actually work with the greenery instead of just learning about it. Today, Professor Sprout had brought in a huge, ugly-looking plant. It looked like green tentacles growing out of a pot, tentacles that moved, although there was no breeze in the room.

“Can anyone tell me, which plant we have in front of us?”, Sprout asked the class.

Hermione, who usually was the first one to raise her arm in any other class, stayed silent, but next to her, Pansy's hand shot up, which was a rare occurrence.

“It's a Devil's Snare”, the girl exclaimed. “It's a vicious plant and can strangle you with its tentacles.”

“Very well, Miss Parkinson. That's five points for Slytherin”, Sprout beamed and demonstrated the strangling character of the plant by holding out a stick so the tentacles could wind around it.

“My mum has two of them in our garden”, explained Pansy to the surprised group around her. “Keeps the gnome population low. They're stupid enough not to learn they have to walk around them.”

Hermione shuddered and decided she did not want to meet Mrs Parkinson any time soon.

The Devil's Snare, explained Professor Sprout, was not a common plant, but could be held in cold and damp places. In the open, it usually grew in forests or in shady places.

“The plant does not like light or heat. Thus, if you ever end up trapped in a Devil's Snare it would be wise for you to know a few spells that create either light or heat or – in the best case – both at once. It acts like a predator, so the more you move, the quicker it will strangle you.”

“Nice”, murmured Blaise. “What a charming herb. Just what you want to give your girlfriend for Valentine's.”

~*~*~*~

 

Their next lesson was Transfiguration. It had turned out that Transfiguration was one of the most difficult subjects taught in Hogwarts. It was much harder than charms and had an equal reputation to Potions. If you made a small mistake or got distracted, you would ruin everything. Professor McGonagall was slightly less subjective than Snape when it came to judging the performance of her students. Although you could tell that she had a soft spot for the Gryffindors, it never showed in her classes.

They handed in their essays on how to transfigure a desk into a pig, when Harry Potter appeared beside Hermione.

“Thank you”, he murmured under his breath.

She raised a brow, questioningly.

“Someone tried to hex me in the corridor yesterday.”

Hermione nodded. She had a notion that it had been Theo, who had been talking about “giving Potter a scare” for a while now and did not want to see reason when she told him that it was not Potter's fault that he had ended up on the Quidditch team.

“Well then he should have resigned”, said Theo with a shrug, when they had been talking it over during dinner. “Tell them it's unfair and that he won't do it.”

She had stared at him with disbelief.

“Seriously Theo, I know Potter already has a reputation of being the noble idiot, but tell me one person you know who would not take the opportunity to play on their house's Quidditch team, if it was offered to him or her.”

That had shut him up for the rest of the evening, but she had known he was not completely convinced.

After all the students were seated again, Professor McGonagall waved her wand and a big cage appeared on her desk in which about two dozen Mice were scrambling around.

“Today”, she said. “We are going to tranform mice into snuff boxes. I hope you all read the respective chapter in your books. Remember the formula. This spell is not as hard as it looks because you can eliminate the first variable. The body weight of a mouse is about the same as the weight of the snuff box. So you can focus on the rest of the spell. I will distribute the mice now.”

After half an hour Hermione was sweating profusely while Draco had started poking his mouse with his wand.

“Don't you think it looks slightly squarer than before?”, he asked.

Hermione's mouse had turned a golden colour but apart from that nothing else had happened to it. Professor McGonagall still seemed happy with their progress.

“This is one of the hardest spells you will learn in your first year”, she explained while collecting the mice and examining Neville Longbottom's animal that looked dishevelled and ill. “Please don't be disheartened if it did not work this time. You will really have to concentrate on this spell and most people lack the power of absolute concentration in the beginning. It doesn't have anything to do with talent. It's all a question of how hard you work. I am sure that every single one of you, yes also you Mr Weasley” - holding up a very dead looking mouse - “will master this spell by the end of the year. Try to train your minds to truly focus on the task at hand. This is your only homework. Now, I will see you at the feast tonight.”

 

~*~*~*~

 

The Great Hall looked amazing. Hagrid, the groundkeeper, had been seen carrying huge pumpkins into the castle throughout the day. Some of the older students – including Fred and George, who had once more earned a detention by using instant darkness powder in the corridor in front of the Potions classroom – had helped to turn them into huge lanterns with scary faces and had been witnesses to Professor Flitwick and Professor McGonagall releasing a dozen tame bats in the hall that now zoomed over the tables together with the Hogwarts ghosts.

The food looked delicious and smelled wonderful as well. Hermione made a mental note to visit the kitchen again and tell the house elves how much she had liked the pumpkin cake they had created. Fred was right in the middle of explaining how him and George had tried to make some of the pumpkins fly around the hall, before the teachers had caught them out, when the door banged open and Professor Quirrell came running into the hall. He was limping and his weird turban looked as if it would fall off any second.

“ _ Troll  in the dungeons! Troll in the dungeons! Thought you ought to know."  (1) _

The feast was interrupted immediately and all the pupils except for the Slytherins were told to return to their respective common rooms.

“Why are the Slytherins allowed to stay?”, Hermione asked bewildered.

Fred shrugged.

“Their Common Room is in the dungeons. Probably not very safe to go there right now. Would like to know who let the troll loose in the castle though. They're dumb as doornails. Would never get in here without help.”

As they rose to follow their prefect Penelope Clearwater, Hermione cast a glance over to the Gryffindor table and stopped in her stride.

“Harry Potter is missing”, she said.

Fred followed her gaze and drew in a sharp breath.

“Ron's not there either”, he murmured.

They exchanged a glance. The two Gryffindors might be anywhere in the castle. Literally anywhere.

“We have to find them”, Hermione decided.

Draco stared at her.

“Please tell me you did not just suggest we go looking for Potter and the Weasel while there's a troll on the loose.”

“They don't know about the troll”, Hermione responded dryly. “If they run into it, they might get hurt.”

Draco opened his mouth, but Fred cut him short.

“Feel free to head to the Common Room, Malfoy. We'll catch up with you later.”

The blond boy seemed to hesitate for a second, then straightened his back.

"I'm coming with Hermione”, he said.

 

As soon as they were out of the Grea Hall, the three of them broke away from the Ravenclaws and headed down a narrow passage to their right. Fred pulled out a piece of parchment from the pockets of his robes and pulled out his wand.

“So. Let's see where they have gone”, he murmured. “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.”

Hermione was about to ask him, what this was about when lines appeared on the formerly empty parchment. It took about a minute until a map of the Hogwarts grounds had emerged. But it was not just a map, she noticed. There were lots and lots of tiny dots heading in the direction of the Ravenclaw tower, a bunch of other dots walking towards the kitchen, a bulk of them heading up to another tower and finally there were three dots, labelled with “Fred Weasley”, “Hermione Granger” and “Draco Malfoy” standing in a small corridor just off the entrance hall.

“Wow”, Draco murmured. “That's awesome.”

Fred grinned.

“Most helpful thing me and George ever nicked from Filch's office, I tell you.”  
  


They all scanned the map with their eyes. It was Draco who found what they were looking for.

“Look!”, he said, pointing to two spots in the men's toilets on the first floor.

“What the heck are they doing in there?”, Hermione asked.

Draco shifted his weight next to her and scuffed his feet. She turned to face him.

“What are they doing there?”, she repeated.

“Theo and Blaise...”, Draco started but she cut him off with a furious wave of her hand.

“Let me guess, they either knocked them both on the nose or they locked them into the toilet?”

Draco murmured something that sounded like “both”. 

“I wish that Theo and Blaise would stop that ridiculous vendetta against Harry Potter”, Hermione exclaimed, starting to stride towards the staircase. “Now, let's get them out of there.”

The next moment, she stopped dead and ushered them both into a dark corner just in time to see Snape run up the stairs, a determined look on his face and his wand in his hand, cloak billowing behind him.

“Where's he going?”, Fred murmured, staring at the map. “He's on the staircase to the third floor now. As is Quirrell... this is weird.”

“Come on, Fred”, Hermione said pulling his sleeve. “We need to get your idiotic brother out of that bathroom.”

It turned out though, that the troll had decided to leave the empty dungeons and play somewhere else. They heard his huffs and inarticulate growling just when they rounded the corner of the corridor leading to the toilet. The next thing they heard was a crash and the sound of splintering wood and the scream of two boys.

“Damned!”, shouted Fred and ran down the corridor without a second thought. Hermione was on his heels. Draco followed in a slightly slower trot.

The door of the men's toilets had been smashed in and a huge form was covering the entrance. Fred waved his wand and shouted _“_ _Immobulus”_ just as the troll lifted his club to smash whoever was in front of it. The troll seemed to hesitate in its movement, but shrugged of the charm as it was a nasty fly.

“Ron!”, shouted Fred with panic in his voice as the club came down, shattering the tiles in the bathroom. The red headed boy crossed the threshold and jumped onto the back of the troll. Hermione could hear Harry Potter trying a _“Diffindo”_ on the troll, which seemed to bounce off almost as easily as the spell Fred had used.

It seemed as if a direct attack would not work on it. The troll had turned on the spot now, because it had felt the impact of Fred hitting its back and was trying to get rid of him by moving its upper body back and forth. 

“Hey, troll!”, Hermione shouted, drawing its attention by jumping up and down. 

“Are you mad?”, Draco screeched, stumbling backwards.

The troll huffed and started to walk towards them.

“You better come up with something in there!”, Hermione shouted, ducking as the club hit the wall behind her. 

The troll raised the club for a second strike when Draco launched himself at it. The troll plucked the boy off his neck and threw him down on the floor without hesitation. The boy hit the stone hard and lay there motionless.

“You nasty, disgusting beast”, Hermione cried, ducking the club again, but hitting the wall with her head so hard she saw stars.

“ _Wingardium Leviosa_ ”, she heard Ronald Weasley shout. Her brain commented that Ronald Weasley was clearly out of his mind to use that spell on a full grown mountain troll just before the massive body in front of her toppled over and hit the floor with a disgusting thud.

 

It turned out, the younger Weasley had saved the day by sheer luck. Shouting the only spell he could remember in his panic, he had lifted the club of the troll which had subsequently crashed down on the head of its owner.

“I'm glad the three of you came, though”, said Harry Potter while Hermione mended his glasses with the _“Reparo”_ spell. 

Fred had hugged his younger brother quickly and then returned to his cheery old self, noting that the troll could probably kill people by stench only.

“I am wondering why Quirrell did not manage to get this situation under control, though”, he said, kicking the troll's butt.

“I thought I read that he was particularly good with trolls.”

Draco coughed and nodded. He was conscious again, but some nasty bruises were blooming on the side of his face.

Fred looked around.

“Harry, Ron, you call Professor McGonagall. She should be able to handle the troll. I'm taking Draco and Hermione up to the Hospital Wing.”

“I don't need to...”, protested Hermione.

“You bumped your head against a wall. I won't let you go back to our Common Room without Madame Pomfrey checking if you have a concussion”, Fred replied and helped Draco to his feet.

With one last look at the troll he shook his head again.

“I really don't get why Quirrell did not finish it off in the first place.”

 

A./N. (1) Quirrell's shouting is a direct quote from JKRs original works.


	8. Games and Players

**Book I - Chapter 8 – Games and Players**

Hermione had never been much into sports. Although her father had been quite into football and her mother was a big rugby fan, Hermione had never understood the fascination of sports. She had always been the last one that got picked for a team in primary school and she had not even cared. She had not cared much for Quidditch either, when she had first seen it mentioned in one of her books. Of course it was obvious that this sport seemed to mean a lot to most of the children, but Hermione had decided that as much as she liked to be like everyone else, you had to draw the line somewhere. She soon found out though, that if both of your best friends were incredibly fond of Quidditch, there was no avoiding it.

“I'd rather read a book”, she complained as Fred and Draco dragged her along to the Quidditch field. “I don't give a toss for this game.”

“You will give a toss, as soon as you've given it a chance”, Fred exclaimed. “Just you wait girl. Quidditch is not only a sport, it's a religion.”

“They said the same about Star Trek and yet I never could get my head round all the plot holes.”

Neither of the boys even asked her what she was talking about. It looked as if their brains had limited their activity to the functions that were directly or indirectly linked to the match.

“I bet Slytherin will beat the Gryffindors to mash”, said Draco as they sat down on one of the upper rows of seats in the small arena.

Fred shrugged.

“Can't say you don't have a point, mate. The Gryffindors have not been playing well last season and I don't know whether the new team is any better. Potter can fly but for me he has yet to prove he can catch a snitch and my brother's a decent beater, but what they need is a functioning team. George says Angelina and Katie have been flying pretty well though.”

“Mash”, Draco stressed his point by hitting his fist into his outstretched hand.

It looked as if the whole school was down at the Quidditch field. No single seat was unoccupied. Professor McGonagall and Snape had both sat down surrounded by pupils from their houses and did not make eye contact.

“Gryffindor versus Slytherin is always a highly contested match”, Fred explained. “And both McGonagall and Snape are really into it. They probably only sit so far apart so they are not tempted to strangle each other over a foul.”

Hermione pulled out a book from her bag. She could at least do something productive until the actual match started. It was Fred who snatched “History of Magic” from her with a grin, when the teams walked onto the field.

“Now, focus, watch and learn, young girl”, he said.

Hermione really tried hard not to give a damn. She really did not want to support any of the teams. As she did not know any second year Slytherins, she noticed that she was slightly biased towards Gryffindor though. George had not been lying when he had told his brother that the chasers were good at their job. Also, Harry Potter and Flint, the Slytherin Seeker had already been involved in more than one head to head chase around the field.

Hermione watched one of the Slytherins hit a bludger towards George. The redhead ducked it, but the Slytherin flyer just came right after the ball and rammed his opponent.

Without even knowing what she was doing, Hermione jumped out of her seat. “You nasty rat!”, she shouted. Next to her, Fred and Draco exchanged a glance and started to laugh simultaneously.

“I knew it wouldn't take long to convince you”, Fred stated.

“Muggle sport is admittedly boring. Because you only have one ball and not enough dynamics”, Draco added. “But you just can't not like Quidditch. It's an unwritten law.”

All three of them followed the match eagerly. Draco shouting for Slytherin, Fred shouting for Gryffindor, Hermione shouting against whoever had just broken the rules. Then, something weird seemed to happen to Harry Potter's broom. The boy held onto it for dear life but it looked as if the Nimbus2000 was completely out of control.

“Someone's hexing it”, Hermione shouted with a frown. She quickly did the calculations. If the boy fell from that height, chances were he'd break his neck and die. She was not a Potter fan but she had no grudge against him either. And even if she had, there was no grudge big enough to wish someone dead. Her eyes scanned the opposite ranks, looking for something, anything that might give away the person who was casting this spell.

“Snape”, she exclaimed suddenly.

The Potions master was clearly mouthing words and was completely focussed on the boy who was clinging on to his broom with only one hand now.

Draco followed her eyes.

"No way”, he said.

Hermione did not want to believe it either, but it looked an awful lot as if Severus Snape was trying to kill the Gryffindor Seeker (or perhaps only have him fall off his broom – someone like Snape might know ways to avoid killing a student over a Quidditch match).

“I'm going to end this”, she said. “This is not fair.”

Without waiting for Draco's and Fred's protest, she squeezed past the other pupils in their row and made her way to the opposite ranks. Her friends saw her shake Crabbe's hand on her way and Theo pat her back. The next thing they saw was smoke rising up from where Snape was standing. As the Potions master tried to stiffle the flames that were leaping up his robe, Hermione made her way back to the Ravenclaws.

“I think Quirrell might have a hunch that the fire was my doing”, she whispered. “I was concentrating on getting away and I just bumped into him at full speed. I think he even fell over. I did not stop to check.”

“Doesn't matter”, Draco murmured. “He's an idiot anyway. And you might just have saved Potter's life at least he's on his broom again.”

Only a short while afterwards, Draco howled sadly.

“Damned, Hermione. You made Slytherin loose, do you know that?”

“I only gave everyone a fair chance. I'm impressed though. Does that really count as “caught”? I mean, he almost swallowed it. That's hardly a catch.”

“Well it counts as one”, Fred beamed. “Wanna come join the celebrations or stay with your sulky best friend, Hermione?”

The girl looked from one of her best friends to the other. Her eyes darted to the Quidditch field, where George was dancing around Harry and hugging his team mates, then shifted to the Slytherin ranks where Pansy, Theo, Vincent and the others were walking towards the stairs with hanging shoulders. She decided that it was time for some diplomacy.

“I'll be in the library”, she said. “Give George a hug from me and tell him he played well. Oh, and Draco, could you ask Pansy if she could get me some more of these penny dreadfuls? I think I am still not up to scratch on wizarding society rules.”

~*~*~*~

 

Later in the evening, all three of them had found their way to the Common Room again. To avoid any problems that might arise from their supporting different teams, Hermione had asked Fred and Draco to show her how to play chess. It had not taken her long to understand the basic movements, but she had not yet completely grasped how both Fred and Draco managed to think ahead at least three moves from the one they were doing. As they knew she was good at learning by observation, they had decided to play against each other and elaborate what they were doing.

“So, I have two options now”, Fred explained. “I can either beat his knight or make sure he can't attack my bishop. If I beat his knight, there are chances he will just let me do it and walk in on the bishop anyways, but it's also possible, he tries to get his own bishop out of the way so I can't beat that in the next move. It's a bit of psychology. You have to figure out, whether your opponent is a defensive or offensive player. The really good players can do both and confuse the hell out of you, but everyone has a predisposition towards the one or the other.”

“Yeah”, Hermione said calmly. “You're a defensive player, so you'll not move your knight but shield your bishop. And Draco is so offensive he's almost reckless in his movements. Knowing that, you'd have lost your bishop regardless of where your knight was standing.”

The boys stared at her. Draco's grey eyes reflected the light of the flickering fire. Fred let his fingers run through his hair.

“You are scary, Hermione Granger”, the red head stated.

“Scarily intelligent”, Draco grinned.

He stood up and yawned.

“I'm off to bed. See you tomorrow, Hermione, Fred.”

When she lay in her own bed half an hour later, floating in that blissful state between waking and dreaming, Hermione thought, how strange it was that Fred and Draco seemed to get along these days. None of them had seemed inclined to befriend the other, yet, by both being friends with her, they had learnt to respect each other. They would never be besties, Hermione knew. She had read enough of Pansy's books to know that the backgrounds of Draco and Fred were too different to make it easy for them to be even acquainted as they were.

She was happy though, that they tried, that there was no open hostility between them. In the beginning it had probably been because they did not want her to think ill of them. If any of them had forced her to choose, he would have lost her the same second. So they had lived under a truce that had been strengthened by their combined dislike for McGonagall and the whole Harry Potter on the Quidditch team bussiness. Hermione wondered whether they would have even spoken to each other if Draco had been sorted into Slytherin and Fred into Gryffindor. It seemed like the hat-glitch was the only thing that had made it possible for a Weasley and a Malfoy to sit at one desk to study, on one table to eat and in front of one fireplace to teach a Muggle born witch chess. With a smile on her face, Hermione finally succumbed to sleep. In her head she still pictured her two best friends as she had seen them tonight, divided by nothing more than a black and white chequered board instead of centuries of prejudice and misunderstanding.

 

A./N.: Thank you soooo much for reading this. Also, it's like the best thing to hear that people are becoming involved with this story. Thank you!!! Finally, this is a short chapter in comparison to the previous ones, I know, but the next one will be really long as I intend to squeeze Christmas and the mirror Erised in it. I know approximately how I will be handling this, but I don't have all the details mapped out yet. 

 


	9. Hermione's Christmas

**Book I - Chapter 9 – Hermione's Christmas**

 

Three weeks before Christmas, a letter from Narcissa Malfoy arrived for her son. As she had been writing to Draco about once a week, he took the letter from the black owl with the silken shiny feathers that had landed next to his porridge and gave it a piece of owl biscuit before it flew off again following the other birds out of the window. He opened the letter using a butter knife and pulled the thick parchment out of the envelope. No more than a minute later, he went pale. The hand holding the document dropped and landed on the table with a thud.

“Impossible”, he murmured.

Hermione, who had been tryingt to cut up an orange using a spell she had found in a book the other day and was now wiping the juice off hers and Fred's cloaks with a napkin, stopped what she was doing and looked at him with a concerned look on her face.

“Draco?”

He held out the parchment.

“Read!”, he commanded.

She followed suit. Narcissa's handwriting was neat and straight, with long vertical lines.

My dear Draco, it read. I am sorry to have to ask this of you, but considering your father's current mood and the fact that the Blacks will be coming over for dinner as well, I think it would be best if you stayed at Hogwarts over christmas just to avoid a family drama. I hope that your father will get his head round the hat glitch and that it was not your fault you ended up in Ravenclaw at some point....

Hermione dropped the letter and shook her head.

“This is dreadful”, she said. “I am so sorry, Draco.”

Her own parents had written to her a while ago and told her how much they were looking forward to seeing her again over the holidays. It had only appeared to her that there were less fortunate children, when she had heard Harry Potter mention that he was going to stay in Hogwarts. George had told her that the Dursleys, the orphaned boy's foster parents, were “the worst kind of people”. Ronald Weasley would also be staying at Hogwarts to keep his best friend company.

“Mum threw a fit because of it”, Fred had said. “But then, she said it was such a nice and decent thing to do and that it proved Ron was a true Gryffindor.”

He had rolled his eyes, but Hermione had wondered, whether it was really true that Molly and Arthur Weasley did not care that one of their children had been sorted into a different house than the rest of the family. There seemed to be a pretty firm believe in the wizarding community, that there was a “right” house for a family. If you did not end up in that house, it could make you an outcast. In the Malfoy's case it was really bad. She did not understand the dimensions of how bad, but from all the information she had gained by talking to the Slytherins and from Pansy's books, she was sure she had a general idea. Still, she had not expected that Draco would not be allowed to go home over Christmas.

“I am so sorry”, she said, grabbing her friend's hand for a second.

Draco looked up, his face a mask. He balled his hand into a fist.

“I am going to make him proud”, he murmured. “Someday, I am going to make him proud.”

 

~*~*~*~

 

When she boarded the Hogwarts Express on the 23rd of September, it was with a heavy heart. Draco had not come to breakfast in the morning and he had not shown up in the common room. His room mate Michael Corner told her, the boy had left the curtains of his bed closed and did not reply If you spoke to him.

“Leave him alone”, Fred had said and grabbed the handle of her trunk. “There's nothing you can do about this. There's nothing you could say that would make it any better for him.”

And she knew he was right.

Her parents picked her up at the station. From her vivid descriptions they had been able to identify the Weasley's on the platform and had joined them while they waited for the train. Arthur Weasley had used the opportunity to interrogate Hermione's father on the exact use of power plugs and Molly had been so smitten by the friendly and open demeanour of Jean Granger that she had invited their family to her home on boxing day.

When Fred and George heard the news, they grinned widely.

“See you soon then, Hermione”; they said simultaneously and Fred added that it had to be fate that Ron did not come home for the holidays.

“So you won't have to hex him”, he said in a low voice. “Percy can be an annoyance as well, but he's quite taken in with you already because he heard how many house points you won for Ravenclaw.”  
  


They waved good bye and the Grangers made their way to their car whilst the Weasleys went into the other direction. A lot of people turned their heads watching the red headed family and their odd assortment of luggage including a huge owl that hooted every couple of minutes. She smiled.

“Darling, I think you should better give us some basic class on wizards and magic and what we are to expect, when we visit them”, said David Granger with a wink. “I get the impression that there will be a lot of stuff that is going to be quite odd for us.”

“But they are lovely”, Jean picked up the thread while climbing onto the driver's seat. “Molly is such a dear. And the twins... you have written so many nice things about Fred. He seems to be a really good friend.”

Hermione nodded.

“He's one of my best friends.”

“And the other one is Draco, isn't it? Where was he? I expected he'd be with you as well.”

Hermione sighed.

“His dad did not want him to come back home for Christmas. His family is... kind of difficult.”

 

~*~*~*~

 

Christmas day brought a few surprises. The first owl that arrived in the small house the Grangers inhabitet, was a slightly scruffy brown animal that looked as if it had flown against at least four windows before reaching its destiny. It carried a small parcel wrapped in ordinary brown paper.

Hermione tore the wrapper and a note fell out. She immediately recognized Fred's scrawl.

_I think mum also has something for you which is officially a present from all of us, but I thought it would be nicer if you got my present today. Hope you'll like it._

It was a silver quill with a dark blue feather at the end and a set of parchment that had her initials embossed at the top right corner. Jean, who had been checking the cookies in the oven, came over to the kitchen table and smiled.

“From Fred?”, she asked.

Hermione nodded. Her mother took the quill and examined it, then had a look at the parchment. She smiled. In the same moment, a second owl zoomed in through the old open fireplace leaving ash stains on the wooden floor. Hermione recognized it as one of the school owls she had been using regularly. It carried a parcel wrapped in silver and dropped it onto the table missing the new quill by an inch.

This present contained a second hand copy of “The Lewis Chessmen – A History of Wizard Chess”. There was no note coming with it, but when Hermione opened the book, there was an inscription on the first page.

F _or Hermione Granger, who was a friend in need._

She knew Draco's handwriting well enough from checking his homework to know he had sent this to her.

Both of these presents were not really a surprise. As the two boys were her best friends, Hermione had bought them gifts as well and sent them to their homes in the very early morning. The idea for the new Quidditch gloves for Fred had come to her after she had seen the holes in the ones he wore. The brand new copy of “Magical Draughts and Potions” for Draco was also something wholly practical. There had been an accident originating from Hannah Abbot's kettle that had led to Draco's book being reduced to paper maché with a very bad smell and he had been constantly borrowing her copy throughout the term. Not that she minded, but it was easier to study for exams if you had your own book.

Unexpected were the owls that followed, though.

The first one could be easily told to come from Pansy as it was carrying a bag of penny dreadfuls – which Hermione stuffed back into the bag quickly before her mother could get a glimpse of the covers. The second owl was the biggest surprise of them all though. It was another school animal and it carried a voucher for Flourish and Blotts and a note.

_Merry Christmas, Hermione. Thanks for your help with the troll and everything._

_Harry Potter_

Hermione stared at the note in disbelief. Harry Potter had sent her a present? It dawned on her that this boy had been much lonelier in his life than she had ever been if her saving him from the troll and warning him about the antipathy of the other students was enough to have him consider her as – well, “a friend” was probably to much, but as someone who was important enough to send a Christmas present to. She made a mental note to talk to the boy more during the next term.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Preparing David and Jean Granger for their first proper contact with the wizarding society had been a challenge, but when they got ready for dinner on Boxing Day – Arthur Weasley had owled them he would come and pick them up at six - Hermione was pretty sure she had covered all the essentials.

She had warned her parents that it was very likely Arthur Weasley would apparate right into their living room or step out of the fire place, but the man had done his research and rang the door bell at exactly six o'clock. It turned out this would be the most normal part of the night though. When David Granger opened the door, Arthur was just pressing the button for the bell a second time, a fascinated look on his face.

“Good evening, good evening”, he said, shaking the Muggle's hand and beaming. “This is so amazing”, he pointed at the doorbell. “You will have to explain this to me later on. But now, we have to get going, or Molly will be upset. That's my car down there.”

He pointed at a pretty old Ford Anglia that was waiting in front of the house. Hermione was surprised to see a wizard drive a car, but her astonishment soon wore off when Arthur Weasley began to explain about all the “extras” he had added to the car. It made her grin. Fred had told her that his dad was fascinated by Muggle technology.

“He works for the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts department, but if he ever had to raid his own house, he'd have to go to jail.”

The Ford Anglia, it turned out, was able to fly and to become invisible which shortened their travelling time to about fifteen minutes. Hermione could not help but be proud of how stoically her parents just accepted the existence of magic. They were both highly logical people and she had worried about how well they would cope.

When they arrived at The Burrow, the Weasley's abode, all three of them stopped dead for a second after they had climbed out of the car. The house looked as if it had started off as a tiny cottage that had then been enhanced over and over again. Any statistician would have screamed in agony had he seen the construction that had to be held together by magic, because the laws of gravity definitely acted against it.

“They're there!”, came a cry from one of the lower windows and the next moments the twins came running out of the Burrow racing towards their guests. Fred reached them first and literally flung himself at his friend.

“You know what”, he exclaimed. “I didn't even notice how used I had become to you being around all the time. It was super odd not to see you for two days. And thanks for the gloves. They're cool.”

George had reached them and hugged Hermione as well before offering his hand to her parents. The group entered the house and Hermione got that rush of extreme comfort. The Burrow was messy, as places tend to become, if a lot of people live there. There were books on the sofa, a half-eaten sandwich on a plate on the mantlepiece and a couple of clothes that had been pulled off and left right where the owner had been sitting at the time. She loved it immediately.

Fred's youngest sibling and the only girl, Ginny, was sitting in one of the armchairs reading a book. She only looked up quickly to say “hello” and fell silent again.

Mrs Weasley had prepared a lovely dinner. The food was simple but tasty and the conversation was great. Hermione had found herself sitting next to Percy, but although Fred had thrown her an apologizing glance, it had turned out they got along very well. Yes, the older boy was kind of stuck up, but he was also clever and as he was a few years older than her, his insights into charm work was actually quite interesting.

It turned out that Mrs Weasley really had prepared presents for her guests. While she had chosen a beautiful silk scarf for Jean and a colourful bow tie for David, Hermione got a dark blue knitted pullover with an H on the front.

“We all get one every year”, Fred explained and pointed to the red sweater he was wearing which had a grey “F” stitched into it. “So her making one for you is kind of her welcoming you to the family. The only other non family member she made one for is Harry Potter. She's got a soft spot for him because he's an orphan and all.”

After they had finished off the pudding and Arthur had decided to introduce the Grangers to butterbeer, Fred and George asked for permission to leave the table. Molly only nodded.

“Wanna come with?”, Fred asked holding out his hand to Hermione.

She nodded and followed the twins and Ginny, who had also gotten up, into the garden. A think layer of snow was covering the earth and the air was cold, but not too cold. As The Burrow was situated a few miles away from the next settlement, the stars looked brighter than in the city and the moon gave off just enough blueish light to be able to see.

“So... anyone up for a good snowball fight?”, Fred asked and formed a ball with his hands, just to be hit in the face by one in the next second.

Hermione looked round and saw Ginny grinning mischieveously.

  
“You nasty little rat”, Fred said with a laugh.

"I grew up with George and you”, the girl said drily. “What do you expect?”

 

A./N.Thanks to everyone who is reading this. Special thanks to superultra and fernitron007 who have become such devoted followers. I know I promised you Christmas AND the mirror of erised, but I needed to split this up a bit because it's a loooot of storyline to cover in a way. So this chapter's mainly Hermione, the next one will be mainly Draco. Hope you're ok with that.

 


	10. What You Wish For Most

**Book I - Chapter 10 – What you wish for most**

 

If there was one thing he really regretted, it was not having said good bye to Hermione. He had not been able to get up and go down to the Common Room and watch all the others leave, all these happy faces, their glee. He heard them leave, heard how the chattering downstairs died down until everything was silent. Snow had fallen and muffled the sounds even more. To Draco, the castle seemed to lie in a deep sleep. The Ravenclaw tower had been almost deserted. There were two other students staying, both much older than him and not inclined to make new friends. Not that he wanted to make friends with anyone in his desperate state. He walked through the corridors aimlessly, thinking, thinking. How could he ever convince his father that he was still worthy of being a true Malfoy?

On the afternoon of the 24th, Draco bumped into Hagrid the ground keeper. The giant man beamed down at him. His beard and hair looked even bushier than usual.

  
“The young Malfoy, if I am not mistaken?”

Draco hesitated for a moment. His father had never spoken of Hagrid with anything but contempt and it was obvious enough that the man was not the brightest person on this planet, but on the other hand, Hagrid had never done anything to deserve his scorn, so he nodded.

“Yes. I'm Draco.”

“Stayin' here for Christmas as well, are ye? Not that many pupils around this year. Would be mighty glad for one more pair of helpin' hands in the Great Hall, if ye've got time. Just go ahead, will ye? I'll be back in a minute. Professor Flitwick told me ter get a ladder so he can observe the whole arrangement from above.”

It turned out that Potter and the Weasel also had volunteered to help decorate the Great Hall and the twelve gigantic Christmas trees that Hagrid had brought in a couple of days ago. Flitwick, sensing the problem before it could arise, told the two of them to finish off the trees on the left hand side and ordered Draco to clean the slightly tarnished silver globes he wanted to hang on the ones on the right hand side of the hall.

“Take out your wand, boy. You don't have to do it by hand. This is not detention after all. So, look, you take the ball in your left hand, then twirl it like this. Point your wand steady and flick it only a little to the side. _Tergeo_. See?”

Draco took the next glass globe and followed Flitwick's instructions. Although not all of the tarnish came off at once, the teacher was quite satisfied.

“The flicking at the end is a bit tricky. But you'll get the hang of it, Mr Malfoy. I am sure. Just don't let Mister Weasley see you do it. I did not even dare show him, because he's clumsy enough to break anything he tries to work magic on... aaaah Hagrid brought the ladder. Thank you very much for helping. I'll leave you to it, Mr Malfoy.”

Flitwick walked down the hallway to join Hagrid – and avoid that the huge man knocked any of the trees over with the tall ladder he was carrying on his shoulder. Draco could not suppress a smile.

“ _Tergeo_ ”, he murmured and pointed at the spinning ball in his hand.

The black stains on the surface seemed to float together and vanish in the tip of his wand. He made a mental note to show this one to Hermione to make up for the ink stains he had left on her Transfiguration book.

“How come you're not at home, Malfoy?”, he heard a familiar voice.

The Weasel had become bored of decorating and had walked over, hands in the pockets of his worn out trousers that had been passed on to him from one of his older brothers. Draco looked at him with a weary expression. He wished the boy would have stayed at the other side of the hall. He wished he could just shrug and pretend he wasn't there or – even better – be nice enough to him to take the wind out of his sails. But something about the way Ron had acted towards him ever since they had started school had led to a deep seated dislike against him. Of course, Lucius Malfoy had always sneered at the Weasleys: Arthur the Muggle-lover and his army of red headed blood traitors. But that wasn't it. Not at all. After all, Fred was a Weasley too, and he was all right. But then, Fred had not told his brother or any of his friends not to take the hand offered in friendship to them. He had not acted as if he was a superior kind of human being in comparison to the Malfoys and “their ilk” (a term that Ron had coined more than once when he had been in hearing distance from Draco himself or one of the Slytherins). Draco crossed his arms in front of his chest and propped up his chin.

“I could ask you the same question, yet I fear I already know why. Your parents' mousehole of a house is probably not big enough to hold all of your lot, so they got rid of their least favourite family member”, he sneered.

Although it was far from the truth, he hit the mark with it. Ron's face turned dark red with a slight violet tinge that did not go well with his hair.

“You bastard”, the Gryffindor spat out and balled his fists.

Balls his fist, Draco registered. Is not confident enough to reach for his wand. His fingers tightened around his own hawthorn wand. He had forgotten about Harry Potter, though. The dark haired boy had stayed in the background up to this point, but now he stepped forward, his wand only centimeters away from Draco's throat.

“Take that back!”, he said calmly.

Draco met Potters green eyes with a steady gaze.

“And what if I don't?”

He never found out. Professor Flitwick had finally noticed what was going on. He stormed down the hall, disarming both Potter and Draco with a flick of his wand and steaming with anger.

“I am disappointed in you!”, he said. “Decent houses you belong to and yet you behave...”

He hesitated when he saw Draco's mean smile.

Yes, say it, Draco thought. Just say that we behave like Slytherins. Because in your eyes as in the eyes of most of the idiots, Slytherin will always be the house of dark magic. As if you know anything. He wanted to shout at Flitwick. He also wanted to pick up his wand from where it was lying on the floor and aim a curse at the Weasel and he knew his father would have approved. But a tiny voice in his head held him back.

“Ronald is a git”, he heard Hermione say. “But there's no reason to get upset about him. It's not worth getting detention because of him. He's no challenge for either of us. We could both outwit him with our wits tied behind our back and that makes him a much too easy target.”  
  


Flitwick waved the Gryffindor boys away. Ron shot another murdering glance at Draco, then walked away. Harry looked at him steadily, hesitantly, as if he wanted to say something, but then followed his friend without another word.

 

~*~*~*~

 

That night, Draco could not sleep. He had never been away from home over Christmas. Although the festival as such was not a big thing in his family, because it was based on Muggle religion, the day had still been a special occasion. Usually, Narcissa's family came round and the Notts joined them for dinner as well. He remembered the crazy snowball fight they had had last year and sighed. The moonlight that shone through the windows was bright enough to light up the whole dormitory. He saw the vacated beds of Michael Corner, Anthony Goldstein and Terry Boot. Although he had not become close friends with any of them, he was used to their chatter, their presence in the room. Now that all of them had gone home to spend the holidays with their families, he noticed how much noise they had made and how much chaos they had caused. The room felt sterile and unlived in without Michael's clothes lying on the floor and Anthony's books amd Terry's Quidditch magazines piling up everywhere. Draco sometimes wonderen why Hermione and Anthony were not best friends. They were the two biggest book worms he knew and probably the only people who ever read “A History of Magic” from back to back. Yet, they did not seem to click with each other and kept a polite but cool distance.

Draco decided sleep would not come to him that night, so he finally got up and walked down to the deserted Common Room. The house elves had cleaned most of the mess up that the leaving pupils had left behind, but there was a piece of parchment lying on the table in front of the fire place. Draco knew it was none of his bussiness, but he was bored, tired and unable to sleep and also curious what the elves might have deemed important enough to leave it behind instead of throwing it away. It could not be homework judging from the state of the parchment that had been folded over and over.

He picked the note up and lit up his wand to be able to read it properly. A minute later, he dropped the thing back on the table, wondering whether he'd rather laugh out loud, bury his face in shame or throw up.

It was a written exchange between two of the girls from second year, Cho Chang and Marietta Edgecombe who were drooling over Cedric Diggory. Cedric was in Fred's year and from what Draco had heard, every single girl in that year was after him. He had perfected the combination of effortless good looks - “effortless if you don't know how much time he spends grooming each morning” Fred had commented – and cleverness that sometimes bordered on arrogance but never really overstepped that line.

“On one hand I hate him”, Fred had said, “but on the other I sometimes wish I was just like him.”

But even if you knew all of this about the Ravenclaw beau, the conversation between Cho – whom Draco had thought of as a nice girl ever since he found out she knew the names of all the Quidditch players in the national league and opened her copy of the Daily Prophet at the sports section first – and Marietta was disturbing. Did girls really talk like that? He imagined Hermione saying something like: “Did you see the way he had his tie hanging loose today? I love me a rebel”, and chuckled.

The common room did not hold any further distraction but underlined the fact that he was almost alone, so he decided he'd override the rules and go for a walk in the castle. He'd have to keep an eye out not to run into Mrs Norris, Mr Filch's cat. The caretaker himself was easier to avoid than his his pet as he actually made some noise when moving, but the cat was like a ghost. It tended to just appear out of nowhere and Fred and George had developed the theory that the animal and the man had some kind of telepathic communication system as it usually only took two minutes for Filch to come trooping down the corridor after Mrs Norris had spotted anyone doing stuff they should not be doing.

It was cold in the corridors and he soon regretted not having put on shoes and was only wearing his pajamas. He had been walking around aimlessly but found himself in the dungeons, between the entrance to the Slytherin common room and the Potions classroom, when he heard approaching steps. He glanced around quickly. The closest door was one he had never used before. Hoping that it would not be locked, he pushed down the handle and suppressed a sigh of relief when it swung open. The hinges did not creak and he thanked whoever had taken care of putting grease on them as he closed it as noiselessly as it had opened.

He was standing in a small classroom that was almost empty. There were a few desks, a blackboard, some torch holders and – most prominent with its golden ornate frame – a huge mirror. Draco listened at the door and heard the limping steps of Filch go by without hesitating. When he turned around again, something struck him as odd. The mirror's reflection was wrong somehow. He stepped closer to examine the phenomenon.

He could see himself in the glass, but in the mirror he was not wearing pajamas. The Draco in the mirror was wearing robes and the Hogwarts school uniform. Draco gulped. Instead of the blue and bronze Ravenclaw colours, his reflection wore the green and silver Slytherin tie and had the Slytherin crest embroidered on his cloak. Out of the darkness behind him, Lucius and Narcissa stepped up to him, both smiling. Although he knew it was not real, Draco turned his head to look over his shoulder. The empty classroom stared back at him. He looked back at the mirror. His mother and father were still there. Lucius lifted up his hand and let it rest on his shoulder. Draco could read the pride in his dad's eyes. He felt as if someone squeezed his heart so tightly it was about to burst. What was this thing? Did the mirror show him the future? Would someone in this school see sense and have him resorted into Slytherin? Would he do something that would convince the authorities he did not belong in Ravenclaw? Something that his father would be proud of? He stood there until he felt his feet go numb from the cold. As he left the room, he promised himself to return the next night and find out whether the image would still be the same.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Christmas Day started off nicely, as the first thing Draco saw in the morning was a pile of parcels at the foot end of his bed.

There was a huge book on flying brooms that Theo had sent, some chocolate cauldrons (with strong alcohol in them as it turned out when he took a bite of one of them) from Pansy and an assortment of Bertie Botts beans, Chocolate Frogs, Fizzing Whizbees and Bubble Yum from the other Slytherins. Hermione's present was so typically Hermione that it made him laugh out loud. Only that girl would think of giving her best friend a school book for Christmas. He looked down to the foot at his bed and his heart sank. There was no present from his parents. Not even a letter. His mood sank with every second as he walked down to the Great Hall to have breakfast.

Obviously, the last thing that he had needed right now was a way too cheery Ronald Weasley who still remembered the Ravenclaw boy had insulted his family. The Weasel was wearing a new marroon knitted sweater and positively glowed with happiness.

“Awwww, did ickle Draco not get the presents he wished for from Father Christmas?”, he teased. “Perhaps ickle Draco has not been a good boy.”

It wasn't much and it wasn't even paticularly resourceful. Had the circumstances been any diffrerent, Draco would have shrugged and dug into his scrambled eggs. But as it was, the idiotic comment had the effect that Ron had hoped for although the Weasel had underestimated his opponent once again. Draco drew his wand and shot a spell in the boys direction who dubbled over on the floor, clutching his throat. Harry Potter – noble and loyal to a degree that really called for treatment – stepped in, but both his wand and Draco's were ripped out of their hands before any more damage could be done. Professor McGonagall strode over from the teacher's desk, clearly in furious mode.

“Can I get the reason for this?”, she demanded, pointing at Ron who was now staggering around the table emptying every single glass of water he could find.

With a flick of her wand the teacher stopped the “hot throat” charm Draco had used on the boy and left Ron looking baffled and dribbling water down his chin.

“Potter? What happened here?”

“Draco insulted Ron yesterday, Ron just paid him back.”

“Detention. Both of you”, said Professor McGonagall sternly. “You will help Hagrid clean the Owlery tomorrow.”

Ron opened his mouth to protest, but the woman cut him short.

“One more word and I'll also have you take extra Charms classes, Mr Weasley, as you are obviously unable to use your wand in times of need.”

Her features softened when she added: “Merry Christmas.”

 

~*~*~*~

 

This time, Draco made sure he would not freeze before he left the Ravenclaw tower for the dungeons. He got to the dungeons undisturbed and only had to take a minor detour because Peeves was swinging from a chandelier in one of the corridors and making a racket.

The mirror was still there and it still showed his parents and him. His reflection still wore the Slytherin uniform. Draco stood there for a minute.

“What are you?”, he asked the reflection. None of the people in the glass answered. They only smiled. His eyes darted to the ornate golden frame. There was an inscription on the mirror which he had not noticed before.

“Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi”, he murmured.

It did not make any sense and it did not sound like any language he knew. Still, he decided, it might be a hint as to whether what he saw in the mirror was the future or something else. He looked around in search of something to write. He knew there were some spare materials on one of the shelves in the Potions classroom next door so he went out into the hallway and into the bigger cellar that still smelt like rotten eggs after Justin Finch-Fletchley had made his kettle explode in the last lesson before Christmas. He walked over to the shelf and found an ink pot and a used quill that still wrote well enough. He looked around for some parchment, but did not find any. With a sigh of remorse – and Hermione's voice screaming at the back of his head – he pulled out one of the old books that former students had left behind and that sometimes were used if someone had managed to destroy their own book by dribbling acid on it or if someone simply had forgotten to buy a copy.

“Advanced Potion Making” by Libatius Borage was the book used by N.E.W.T. students. Draco and Hermione had had a look at a copy of it in the library and had become quite excited as the potions in it were really advanced and fancy. It even contained a recipe for Felix Felicis, liquid luck, which was supposed to be one of the trickiest potions out there. Draco opened the battered copy he had pulled from the shelf. He quickly leafed through it and shook his head. The former owner had left his scribbles all over the pages in the margins between the lines, at the sides of the pages. It was one huge mess. He leafed back to the front where the person in question had inscribed their exlibris at the bottom of the cover page: “This Book is the Property of the Half-Blood Prince”

Draco frowned. What a pompous idiot. He ripped out one of the blank pages from the back of the book and stuffed it into his trouser pockets together with the quill and the ink pot before putting the book back on the shelf. Whoever ended up having to work with that copy in the future was to be pitied.

When he came back into the small classroom, he stopped in the doorway. His brain took several seconds to put two and two together. He had not expected anyone to ever come into this classroom, so it was natural that the presence of Harry Potter in it was something that struck him as unrealistic at first. But it was Potter.

The boy was sitting in front of the mirror, his eyes fixed on the glass. He was wearing a red knitted sweater and old pajama trousers. His hair was as messy as usual and he did not even seem to have noticed that Draco had entered the room. For a second, Draco thought it would be wise to just retreat and pretend this never happened, but the longing look on Harry's face resembled his own feelings when he had seen his father in the mirror so much that he could not help himself. He scuffed his feet to make the boy realize he was not alone. Harry jumped up immediately, turned and had his wand out.

Draco smiled and shook his head.

“Don't worry. It's just me. He closed the door behind him and walked over.

“It's an odd thing, that mirror, isn't it?”, he said.

Harry nodded. Draco could see that he was contemplating whether it was wise to talk to him or whether Draco would run off and call for Filch.

“I have no intention to tell anyone you were out here after hours”, he said. “And if I did, I'd be screwed as well, wouldn't I? I'm not allowed to be here either.”

Harry relaxed and nodded.

“What do you see, when you look into it?”, Draco asked, pulling out the parchment, the quill and the ink pot and starting to copy the inscription.

“My parents”, said Harry in a low voice, almost a whisper, turning back to the mirror and resuming his sitting position. “I never even knew how they looked.”

Draco could not help but feel a pang of sadness at the happiness that crossed the boy's face. He did not know much about the circumstances under which Harry had grown up but from what Fred had mentioned, his aunt and uncle were anything but loving relatives. He imagined how terrible it must be to be an orphan, to know your parents were dead, to never see them smile at you, to never have an argument with them, to never know who the people were that you owed your existence to. Harry Potter, he realized, was a poor sod.

“I see mine as well”, he said, shoving the note into his pocket and sitting down next to Harry.

The mirror stayed black. When he leaned forward the known image appeared again and Harry frowned.

“Why are they gone now?”, the Gryffindor boy asked. “Did you do anything?”

So the mirror only showed one image at a time to the person closest to it. That was interesting. Draco leaned back again and Harry sighed with relief.

“You said you see your parents as well?”, he resumed their conversation without letting his eyes off the reflection for a single second.

“Yeah”, Draco said. “I see myself in Slytherin robes and I see my mum and dad. I... I see the pride in my dad's eyes.”

He noticed that his voice had become shaky and that his eyes had filled with tears. He would not cry in front of Potter. He would not cry in front of anyone. A Malfoy did not cry in public. Never. He stood up.

“Don't let Filch catch you out”, he said, pulling himself together to sound as calm as possible. “You did not even notice me come in earlier on. Best put a chair in front of the door when I'm out, so you'll hear when it opens.”

Harry looked up at him and nodded.

“Thanks”, he said.

Draco shrugged and reached for the handle. Just before he left the room, he hesitated and looked back over his shoulder.

“Merry Christmas, Potter”, he murmured.

“Merry Christmas, Malfoy”, the boy answered.

~*~*~*~

 

Draco did not return to the mirror the next evening. Hagrid had kept him and Ronald Weasley busy in the Owlery for most of the afternoon and it turned out that the fresh air and exercise worked wonders. Draco had sat in the window seat of the Ravenclaw tower reading “Flying Brooms – the Magic of Speed and Aerodynamics” and fallen asleep after just one chapter. As the window seat was narrow, he had woken up when his body had slipped and crashed to the floor. Cursing and limping he had gone up to the dormitories and slept like a baby until the early morning.

On the next day, he installed himself in the library pondering the copy of the weird words inscribed on the mirror's frame.

“Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi.”

After he had filed through a dozen dictionaries, a rune-translator and a book on African dialects he came to the conclusion that the inscription was not simply written in another language. It had to be a riddle of some sort. A code. He thought about the encoded letters he had written to Theo when they were kids. They had been simple codes. Take a letter and exchange it for the one that is a certain number of letters up or down the alphabet. They had indicated the number at the bottom of the page so the other could read the letter.

“Dear Theo” with an encription of plus five would have become: “Ijfw Ymjt”.

He concentrated on "Erised", took a piece of parchment and started writing.

 

ERISED

FSJTFE

GTKUGF

HULTHG

IVMUIH

JWNVJI

…

 

Half an hour later he had a long list of words that you could use to make a knot in your tongue but nothing that would have gotten him any closer to the solution of the riddle.

He stared at the note angrily and finally threw it down onto the table. It sliddered a few centimeters and turned on the spot before it led there. Draco moaned. Draco Malfoy, defeated by a piece of parchment. Then he hesitated, blinked and grinned.

Draco Malfoy, not defeated by a piece of parchment after all.

A minute later he was holding the solution to the riddle in his hand.

“I show not your face but your hearts desire.”

So what he had seen was not the future after all. He had arrived at that conclusion before, after Harry Potter had told him, he saw his dead parents in it, but he had hoped against hope. With a sigh he leaned back in his chair.

Just at that moment, the door of the library opened and Professor Flitwick came in.

“Ah, I expected you would be here, Mister Malfoy”, he said with a smile. “Would you mind following me outside?”

Hesitatingly, Draco shoved the parchment into his bag and followed the teacher. Had Harry Potter told anyone he had been out after hours? No. The Gryffindor boy would not have done that. Unless he had told the Weasel and the Weasel had thought it a bright idea to grass him up. When he walked out the door it was not Flitwick awaiting him with his “detention for Malfoy” face, but it was a tall woman with light blonde hair. She was wearing high heels and a trench coat and radiated elegance and strength.

“Mum!”, Draco said astonished, dropping his bag.

Narcissa covered the space between them and hugged him tightly.

“I am so sorry, Draco”, she said and pressed a kiss on his forehead. “I wanted to come on Christmas Day, but the house was full of people and your father was furious. He would not be pleased to know I am here, but you are my son and I am not going to let my son sit at Hogwarts on his own over the whole holidays. I thought we could go to Hogsmeade together. Get some sweets at Honeydukes.”

Draco's heart leaped in his chest.

“Can we go up to the Shrieking Shack as well?”, he asked.

He had been to Hogsmeade only once before and remembered the sinister looking house on the hill. Him and Theo had tried to climb through the fence, but there had been a repelling charm as well.

“Of course we can”, Narcissa smiled.

“Oh and...”, she added, opening her black leather bag. “I thought about sending this by owl, but I wanted to see your reaction.”

She handed a parcel to Draco. It was neatly wrapped in silver paper. He opened it carefully. It was a leather bound book. The pages had a ǵold rim and it weighed about half a ton. Draco read the title and gulped.

“Death Distilled – Of Alechmy”, he murmured.

“Keep it somewhere safe”, said Narcissa. “Dumbledore would probably not want you to have a copy of this. It gives a lot of insight into the history of Potion making though. Severus told me, you're a natural. He has been around a few times and I guess he might just bring your father around to seeing sense.”

 

A./N.: Thank you fernitron007! And thank you AriFitzsimmons. I am happy what I tried to do with Draco actually worked. I believe that there are certain character traits that you can't change but that a person is also shaped by their surroundings. Thus, his being friends with Hermione has to influence his character at least slightly. But I guess this chapter shows, he still has the bad boy in him. ;-) Also: I feel the urgent need to apologize to what could be seen as shameless Ron-bashing. I don't mind Ron in the canon, but I guess, there would never be any chance of him and Draco getting along. That's just how I perceive it. Perhaps I should put an alert up... 


	11. Dragons and Secrets

**Book I - Chapter 11 – Dragons and Secrets**

Hermione returned to Hogwarts with all the other pupils on the 5th of January. Draco had been pretending to read a book on the front steps at the main entrance and didn't quite succeed at hiding his joy of seeing her again. She had already said her hellos to the other Slytherins on the train. She had been sharing a compartment with Fred and George and the whole group, Pansy, Theo, Vincent, Greg and Blaise, had come by at one point ot another. Pansy had spent more time in their compartment than in the one she had officially been sharing with the boys and Hermione and Fred had exchanged more than one meaningful glance noticing how the black haired girl laughed about even the worst of George's jokes. Somewhere at the back of Hermione's head, a small voice had commented that there was no chance for them to ever end up together. Pansy's mum would probably send the Gryffindor boy into the garden and have him be strangled by her Devil's Snare if she ever found out her daughter had a soft spot for him.

Just then, Pansy had looked up and probably read a few of her thoughts in her face. A blush had reddened her cheeks, but she had said nothing.

Hermione grinned at Draco who was still smiling widely.

“My mum came round on Boxing Day”, he said happily.

Hermione did not ask about Malfoy senior. Had Lucius Malfoy overcome his problem with his son's   sorting, that would have been the first thing he'd told her.

“How were your holidays?”, he asked.

She quickly recounted everything that had happened.

“The Weasleys are quite a nice family”, she finished. “They are a bit chaotic, but loveable.”

“Not to mention they left the worst part of their lot at Hogwarts. I got detention because of him.”

“What?”

“We might have had a little argument. Or two little arguments...”

“Tell me you did not kill or severly injure the brat in the process. He's not worth it.”

“Does a bleeding nose count as 'severe injury'?”, Draco asked.

Hermione considered this for a second, then shook her head.

“I'm fine then”, Draco said.

 

~*~*~*~

Professor Snape was in a particularly nice mood for about a week before the Quidditch match between Hufflepuff and Gryffindor on the 22nd of February. He neither took any points from Anthony for creating a red liquid that exploded upon contact with solid material nor did he take any from Michael and Wendy for shamelessly flirting over their Wiggenweld Potion.

“I don't know who allowed him to be referee in that match”, Fred growled one afternoon in the common room pointing his wand at a dark green Bertie Botts Bean enlarging it to about ten times its size.

“I mean, he's biased as hell against Gryffindor.”

Hermione was sitting on the floor. She tried to decipher her own sleepy notes from Binns' class and ordered them into tiny piles according to topic. She looked up.

“Do you really think he's more fond of Hufflepuff?”

Fred let the bean rotate in the air in front of him.

“Everyone knows he's anto-Gryffindor. He's been anti-Gryffindor ever since he was at school himself. He's taken more points from our oldest brother Bill than anyone else ever did. You know, Bill is a bit like Percy, just with less arrogance and more coolness.”

Hermione frowned. She had heard similar stories over and over again from different people. It seemed like although Snape managed to be tough but fair to all other Houses, he harboured a deep-seated dislike for Gryffindor which made him unable to see if anyone from that house performed better than average in his class but sharpened his eyes to any mishap that took place.

“But why?”, she asked. “Why does he hate them so much?”

“Perhaps because Gryffindors are always the heroes in every story”, Draco suggested.

He was drawing a diagram of the planets and had scribbled all the information they had been given on each of them onto the dots. Pluto was too small to contain all the numbers so he had written them around it in a spiral.

“They are hyped as being super-courageous and awesome. I mean, look at Ravenclaw, we're considered the book worms. Quiet people with a lot of intelligence. Suited for work that requires a lot of brain but doesn't get a lot of publicity. Hufflepuffs are widely considered as idiots and Slytherin will always be the nest from which the evil sprang. Gryffindor on the other hand...”, he spread out his hands.

“They are sooo amazing and sooo strong and courageous. And oh, they have brains as well, but not too much, because that divides them from us socially awkward lot.”

Fred grinned.

“You know what, Draco. You actually have a point.”

Hermione beamed happily at him.

“What?”, asked Draco.

“Nothing. I am just delighted that you said 'us' referring to Ravenclaws”, she said, putting the notes about Uric the Oddball on the pile labelled “historic personas”.

 

~*~*~*~

The weeks went by and Hermione and her two best friends settled into their routines of attending class, studying and hanging out together. Hermione had become quite good at Wizard Chess and athough she had not beat him yet, Draco saw defeat looming around the corner already. She regularly paid visits to the kitchens with George and Fred. Since Christmas, Pansy had been down there with them more than once.

 

“Do you think she has a crush on George?”, Hermione had asked Fred after one of these meetings.

Fred had shrugged.

“Couldn't tell. George likes her. Would never tell her that, though.”

Hermione sighed. The whole Wizarding class system was a bit old-fashioned in her eyes, but neither Fred nor Draco seemed to get her point when she tried to explain what was wrong about it.

Most of the Ravenclaws were good at revising next to their regular schedules. While the rest of the school began to hum like a beehive from the end of February on, the Ravenclaw common room remained a sanctuary of calm. Hermione had seen Parvati and Padma Patil almost cry over their potions books in the library and considered all the fuss that was made about exams slightly crazy.

“I mean of course it is essential to get good marks”, she told anyone who wanted to hear – and those who were already tired of hearing it, “but cramming all that knowledge into your brain last minute is just completely inefficient. These people will forget 80% of what the learnt five minutes after they handed in their exam papers.”

On the sixth of March, Ron Weasley provided some gossip that spread around the school like wildfire. The boy had managed to injure his hand and it was swelling quite badly. The actual size his palm had swollen to differed depending on who told the story. They all agreed it was quite a sight though.

Of course, the first thing Hermione had suspected had been that Draco had once more come across Ronald in the hallway and lost his temper. But although Draco, Greg and Vincent even set up a Weasel Watch to find out what the hand looked like, they pleaded not guilty and for once she believed them. Theo and Blaise had not been involved either. Both of them were disappointed that the hand was the only body part of Ronald Weasley which had become inflamed. Finally, Fred showed a complete lack of brotherly empathy and just laughed his head off after he had come back from a visit to the Gryffindor's common room. Later on Hermione found him in an arm chair, eyes closed, forehead wrinkled. When she asked him what was the matter he explained that Ron's injury looked “quite like... but that should not be possible at Hogwarts” and was reluctant to say another word about his suspicion.

 

~*~*~*~

It was Harry Potter who finally solved the riddle. Ever since term had started again, Hermione had tried to talk to the boy whenever she got the chance. The Quidditch game against Hufflepuff – which Gryffindor had won because Harry had caught the Snitch before Snape could say “Bezoar” – had been a great occasion to become acquainted with the boy a bit more. Fred had taken her along to the celebrations in the Gryffindor tower and she had found out that Harry possessed a sense of humour that was in line with the twins, just slightly less developed.

Draco sometimes teased her about her new found fondness for “Saint Potter” but she just didn’t listen to him. She also knew he didn’t mean it. A week after she had come back from the holidays, he had told her all about the Mirror of Erised. She had noticed that her friend had become less gloomy although Lucius Malfoy still preferred only to converse with his son via Narcissa.

“I just realized that there are people who have much bigger problems than me”, Draco had said and described the sight of Harry Potter sitting in front of that mirror staring at his dead family.

“I guess the closest thing to family he has is this school and the Weasleys.”

Hermione detected a hint of pity in his voice. Draco’s hatred for Ronald was unbroken – and had resulted in detention because he had tried the leg locker spell on the red head in the hallway -, but he made an effort not to get Harry Potter involved in their quarrels. Ron had been the first friend Harry had ever made and obviously his blind loyalty to that friend was mostly due to that fact. You could not really blame Harry for clinging to the first rope that had been thrown to him.

They had spent some time in the library together. One day Harry had found her reading a book that Malfoy had lent to her.

“Of Alchemy”, he had read the title. “What’s that about?”

Hermione had hesitated for a second and then decided there was no harm in telling him.

“It’s about the great Alchemists of history. First and foremost Nicolas Flamel.”

Harry had stared at her as if she were a ghost.

“Say that name again.”

“Nicolas Flamel. You know, the great Alchemist who is the only living person able to create the Philosopher’s Stone. He’s good friends with Dumbledore. There’s a paragraph about their friendship in here.”

She caught his eyes and frowned.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

Harry had sighed.

“Because you just solved a mystery”, he had said but refrained from telling her what that mystery was.

Hermione had not pushed him. But her curiosity had been awoken. She had never before seen that look on Harry’s face, that look of obsession. Something was gnawing at him and it had to do with Nicolas Flamel.

It was two days after Ron’s strange accident that the dark haired boy walked up to Hermione in the hallway and asked whether she had half an hour. When she responded in the positive, he guided her down to the tiny hut that was home to Hagrid the ground keeper. The weather was surprisingly mild for the beginning of March. It almost felt as if spring was already looming around the corner.

“Ron won't be happy I showed you this”, the boy said before knocking on the door. “Just prove him wrong by not running up to the castle and telling all the teachers about it. Also – I’d be happy if you’d keep this secret from Malfoy. Hagrid is a friend. I want to get him out of this before it turns into real trouble.”

Whatever Hermione had expected after this: It had not been a dragon.

“Goodness, Hagrid”, she exclaimed when she saw the ugly creature that was melting a tin pot that Hagrid had set in front of it by breathing little gusts of fire on it.

“He’s cute, ain’t he?”, Hagrid said with a loving smile on his face and an expression in his eyes that could only be described as total and utter infatuation.

“Hagrid, this is Hermione Granger. She’s the smartest witch in our year. She’ll help us.”

Hagrid looked up and mustered Hermione as if he’d only just realized it was not Ron whom Harry had brought along this time.

“Pleasure to meet you”, he said, holding out one of his huge pranks and almost crushing her fingers in a bear hand shake.

“Didn’t know you had friends in Ravenclaw, Harry. Always good to be prepared.”

The issue of Norbert the Norwegian Ridgeback was easy to grasp. Hagrid had bought that egg from a stranger in a Pub and he had kept it in the flames of his open fireplace until the animal had hatched. There was the tiny problem that Norwegian Ridgebacks were not meant to be pets and would never become tame. The dragon had not only singed Hagrid’s beard but was also to blame for Ron’s swollen hand.

“Madam Pomfrey did not believe a word he told her”, Harry said.

“Well, Fred didn’t either”, Hermione nodded. “I guess he knows what these wounds look like. His older brother Charlie works with dragons doesn’t he?”

Harry nodded.

“We wrote to Charlie a while ago. Asked him, whether he would take care of Norbert. He can do it, but he needs us to get the dragon to a place where he can pick him up safely.”

He explained their plan to Hermione who shook her head.

"This is never going to work. Filch is going to catch you out.”

 "We have an invisibility cloak”, Harry countered.

 “Mrs Norris will catch you out. Cats can see through them. Nobody knows how they do it. I read about that in ‘Magical Mysteries’.”

 “Okay, so what’s your suggestion then?”, asked Harry.

 Hermione shrugged.

 “I take care of Mrs Norris. Under one condition.”

 “Which would be?”

 “You tell me about what you guys have to do with Nicolas Flamel.”

 

A./N.: I am incredibly sorry that this took two weeks. A friend of mine got married and there was a shitload of prepararion going on and so I didn't get anything done last week. Also, as the story progresses there's a lot of stuff I have to think of. I hope I didn't do anything that totally kills canon in this chapter. Also: I hope to get back to weekly updates, but I might not manage to update next week, as I am visiting a friend during that weekend and I only happen to actively find time to write on weekends. Rest assured that there will be more though. I actually wrote little tidbits that will happen in later books already. I have a small part of the Yule Ball (because I am obsessed with the Yule Ball), a scene from somewhere in the first bit of Chamber and something from DH as well.

@ superultra: thank you so much for your kind words and your praise. i hope i can live up to your expectations. :-)

@ fernitron007: thinking of Flitwick as Malfoy's head of house is one of the weirdest things. i actually wrote that passage with Snape coming in at first and then thought "no, wait, that's wrong..."

@ AriFitzsimmons: I promise there will be quite some changes to his character. But the father-son issue is going to play a big role as well.

@achuislemochroi: thank you, thank you, thank you. if that is the impression you got from my Draco, he's exactly what I wanted him to be like :-)


	12. Trust and Betrayal

**Book I - Chapter 12 – Trust and Betrayal**

Draco noticed a change in Hermione's behaviour. At first, he could not put his finger on it. It was rather a gut feeling, nothing that could be proven. She was still as nice as always around him – and sometimes incredibly mean in her comments about others. Mostly, she was pretty nasty when she talked about Mandy. The poor girl had started revising for the exams and made the mistake to ask Hermione about the levitation charm.

“Seriously?”, the curly haired girl puffed from behind a pile of notes she had taken during Transfiguration class. “I mean, hey, it's not as if that was like the first proper spell we learnt and she just completely forgot it. How did that girl end up in Ravenclaw?”

“She's not stupid”, Fred remarked from the window seat.

He was blowing up Bertie Bott's Beans again. They usually exploded when they had reached the size of an apple but the orange bean that hovered in the air before the red head was already the size of a grapefruit. Draco made sure his books were out of reach. The last time a blue bean had exploded all over his Herbology book and although he knew how to use the purging spell it had still taken him hours to get the slimy substance off every single page.

“She doesn't remember  _Wingardium Leviosa_ , she recently asked me whether there were Bezoar trees and yesterday she asked Cho Chang whether it was true that the “dead” chess pieces in Wizard Chess came back as ghosts. How is that not stupid?”

“Let's just say her brain is occupied elsewhere”, Fred said and wiggled his wand so the Bean became a bit larger. “I think I've got the hang on this. It's like a balloon. If you blow it up slowly, the tension will ease bit by bit and the thing won't explode.”

Hermione shifted a pile of her work so the bean's contents would not destroy it.

“Okay, so she has a brain but uses it for... what exactly?”

Fred shrugged.

“Boys. One boy. Diggory at the moment, I think. A week ago she was still after Corner, but then decided to go for someone more mature.”

“The words 'Diggory' and 'mature' do not belong in one sentence”, Draco murmured.

Just the day before, he had seen the older boy and his followers having way too much fun with a dung bomb.

“That's why I used two consecutive sentences to explain the situation”, Fred said and wiggled his wand again.

SPLAT. Sticky orange sugary liquid stuck to the window, the seat and the boy's red hair.

“Charming”, said Hermione.

 

~*~*~*~

The change in Hermione's behaviour was so subtle, he was unable to tell at first, but then, it dawned on him. He had seen her exchange a few words with Harry Potter in the hallway. When she had walked back up to him, he had asked her what was the matter. She had shrugged.

“Harry needs help with his Charms homework”, she explained.

A lie. He caught her out not only by the slight twisting of her wrists but also by the fact she had chosen Charms of all subjects. He knew Potter was doing more than okay in Charms. If she had said Astronomy or Transfiguration or even Potions, he might have bought it, but Charms was out of the question. Hermione had secrets from him, secrets she shared with Potter. It hurt more than Draco wanted to admit.

What he did next would later be one of many things on a long list of stuff, he was not particularly proud of. When Harry pushed past them in the corridor one morning, hissing between his teeth “tonight”, he was ready. He would find out what they were up to. That evening, he did not go up to his dorm but stayed in the common room. He had turned one of the armchairs around so it faced an open fire place opposite the stair case that led to the girl's chambers. He pulled his legs up and pressed his back against the cushions. This way, he'd be invisible to anyone who came down.

It was almost midnight, when he heard Hermione come down the stairs. She stopped for a second, probably checking whether she was alone, then she quickly walked over to the door and pushed it open. It only had just swung shut, when Draco followed her.

She walked down the corridor at a fast pace, then suddenly stopped at a corner that led to one of the main staircases.

“Harry?”, she whispered into thin air.

“Yes”, Potter's voice answered.

Draco shook his head and blinked, but he still only saw Hermione in the corridor. Then he heard the rustle of fabric and Harry's and Ron's heads appeared. They seemed to hover in the air, bodyless. But Draco had grown up in a wizard household. He knew an invisibility cloak when he saw one. But where did Harry have that cloak from? They were incredibly rare things. Very advanced and difficult magic was needed to make them work. His own father had been searching for a good invisibility cloak for years but had not been able to attain one.

“Come on”, Harry whispered, “we need to get down to Hagrid's and back before Charlie arrives.”

He threw the cloak over Hermione and they were gone. If Potter had not made the mistake of giving away their destination this would have been the end of Draco's pursuit. As it was, he just walked down to Hagrid's hut quite unperturbed and at a pace that he considered about as quick as the trio huddled under their cloak could be. When he arrived, he heard voices from inside the hut. A fire was lit, so when he glanced in through the windows, he could see everything that was going on. He could not suppress a surprised sound escaping his mouth. Quicker than one would have imagined possible, Hagrid was outside, a crossbow in his hand.

“Who's there?”, he thundered.

Hermione appeared behind him and sighed.

“Draco”, she said in a small voice. “I... why did you follow me?”

Draco stared from her to the giant man who was still pointing his weapon at him.

“Hagrid put that thing down!”, Hermione demanded. “He's a friend.”

Hagrid's hands only lowedered the crossbow reluctantly.

“He's a Malfoy. That's what I know, I do.”

“You've got a dragon in there”, Draco said.

His voice sounded too high pitched, childish, nervous almost panicky.

“You have an effing dragon in your hut! You are a madman. And you...”, he stared at Hermione unable to say anything else.

She walked out to him and put her hand on his shoulder.

“I promise, I will tell you everything, but I'd be really happy if you'd not run up to the castle now and tell Filch or McGonagall what we're...”

“You led him here!”

Ron had finally grasped the situation and came out of the hut with his fists clenched.

“I told Harry we could not trust you”, he hissed and seemed on the verge of hitting Hermione.

Hagrid plucked him from the ground without much effort and positioned himself between him and the girl.

“She did not lead me here”, said Draco not knowing why he was defending Hermione.

After all, she had kept this a secret from him. She had not trusted him enough to make him a part of this plan.

“We need to get back up to the castle”, said Harry with a glance at the clock on the wall. “Charlie will be there soon.”

Hermione and Ron nodded simultaneously. Hagrid sobbed as he handed Ron the huge basket that contained the Norwegian Ridgeback.

"I know Charlie will take good care of him, he will”, said the ground keeper. “Good bye, Norbert, my baby. Ye'll be all right. Yer gonna be with all of yer kin soon.”

Draco counted two and two together.

“You're taking that beast to the castle?”, he asked. “And Charlie's gonna pick him up somewhere?”

“Astronomy Tower if you need to know”, Hermione said.

Her eyes were fixed on his and pleaded.

“Don't sell us out, please”, she said.

“Why shouldn't I?”

“Because you should not take revenge on me by also getting Harry and Ron involved”, she said quietly. “I would have told you. And Fred. I really wanted to. But it was not my secret to share and Ron and Harry said the less people knew, the better.”

Draco gulped.

“All right”, he said. “What exactly is the plan.”

 

~*~*~*~

 

She told him while they were already walking towards the castle.

“And you think poisoning Filch's cat...”

“It's a sleeping draught.”

“A sleeping draught that is concentrated to suit humans and that has only been tested on Ronald Weasley's weird old rat...”

“Who's fine”, Ron murmured from below the invisibility cloak.

“Who's as fine as before which means old and shabby and probably full of lice...”

“Can you two stop bickering please?”, Harry demanded. “Norbert's just singed my hand. He doesn't seem to like conflict much.”

They split up as soon as they entered the castle. Ron and Harry headed towards the Astronomy Tower, Hermione and Draco made their way towards the kitchen. Whilst the two Gryffindor boys made every effort to be as quiet as possible, Hermione and Draco did not take as much heed of muffling their footsteps.

“How do we find Mrs Norris?”, Draco murmured.

Hermione smiled.

“She's a cat”, she said. “She behaves like a cat. And cats have rituals. Mrs Norris usually likes to hunt down here at night. Fred told me that. Hogwarts is infested with mice but they mainly live down here around the kitchens. It's heaven for a cat.”

“But how come she always catches students out elsewhere in the castle then?”

“Because she has an excellent sense of smell and an even better sense of hearing. And she's quick.”

Just as she had predicted, a pair of yellow eyes turned up before them. Hermione made cooing sounds and went down on her knees, pulling out the small flask from her jacket at the same time. She had mixed the odourless potion with some milk. She poured it out on the floor and the cat, after sniffing for a second, began licking at it. The tiny red tongue dipped into the liquid with surprising speed.

"Filch will kill you when he finds out”, Draco whispered.

“He won't find out”, Hermione grinned. "We'll be fine."

She would probably have been right if the Weasel had been less of an idiot. As it happened, just when they turned into the corridor to the Ravenclaw common room after having made sure that Mrs Norris was dreaming of catching huge fluffy mice and had not accidentally overdosed on the draught, a furious looking Professor McGonagall, a robe thrown over her white long nightgown, was waiting for them. She told them to follow her to her office. As both of them had expected, Ron and Harry were already there. Ron looked furious. Harry looked – fine. He nodded quickly when he saw Hermione and Draco enter. So Charlie had picked up the dragon before they had been caught. At least that bit was a relief. Hagrid would not lose his job as a ground keeper and the four of them would probably face detention but would not be expelled for walking the corridors at inappropriate hours.

How they had been caught remained a secret that night. It did not remain a secret though, what awaited them as a punishment.

“The Forbidden Forest?”, Ron squeaked. “But... there's wolves in their... and... and...”

“We'll be with Hagrid, remember?”, Harry whispered. “It's going to be all right.”

 

~*~*~*~

“I can't believe you got yourself caught”, Fred said when he found out what had happened.

Hermione was knifing her steak as if it was still alive and she wanted to butcher it.

“As it turns out we did not get ourselves caught. Your fine brother was the one who ratted on us.”

“I didn't even know you knew that term.”

“I especially learnt it so I could use it to describe Ron.”

Hermione and Draco had found out what had led to their predicament. It had been obvious that McGonagall had known where to find them. Harry had not told them, although they had begged him to do so. The boy knew that Draco's and Hermione's love for Ron Weasley was non-existent already and would probably become even less than that when they heard what had happened. Argus Filch had not been as fair, though.

The caretaker had not found out about Mrs Norris (the sleeping draught had not knocked her out for long and both Draco and Hermione were quite happy to see her stroll through the castle again in the early morning), but he had found the reason why “the two wise kids” had been caught amusing enough to tell them. Harry and Ron had walked right into Filch and Professor McGonagall on their way down from the Astronomy Tower. Harry had just been on the verge of pulling the invisibility cloak over them, when Filch had come up the stair case. The caretaker had called the teacher out of bed, because he had had a major argument with Peeves and he knew her and the Bloody Baron to be the only two people (in the widest sense of the word “people”) who had any influence on the poltergeist.

It had only been a very stupid coincidence, but Ron had come to a different conclusion. “Malfoy and the Granger-girl! I told you, you couldn't trust her!”, he had shouted at Harry, thus alerting Filch and Professor McGonagall to the fact that there were two other pupils out of bed.

“Ouch”, Fred said shovelling mashed potato onto his plate. “I have to admit, even though he is my brother and the same blood runs through our veins and all that bollocks, I could not agree with you more: That was incredibly stupid. I mean... there's something like an honour codec. Even if the two of you had betrayed them, calling you out like that would just have made him as bad.”

Draco stared over to where Ron was sitting at the Gryffindor table over the tip of his knife. He wondered whether there was any chance he might manage to throw the blade hard enough it would get stuck between the Weasle's ribs.

“So, thanks to my beloved imbecile brother, it's detention for all four of you”, concluded Fred, leaning back. “In the Forbidden Forest. How fun. Don't get eaten by the wolves.”

 

A./N.

I already told you it would probably be two weeks. The weekend at my Bro's place was amazing. He's just as much of a geek as I am, so we talked a lot, listened to music (everyone: go and listen to the Symphonic Theatre of Dreams album, it's a revelation!), talked some more, spent about 5 hours researching what stuff to use to build armour and watched "Mary and Max" which is a really cute movie.

I had that plan in my head of getting this chapter up during the weekend, but kind of got distracted by sewing projects and the great sunny weather. But I might get more than one chapter up this week. There's not that much stuff going on at the moment (apart from me having the worst migraines ever) and there's plenty of ideas in my head which want to be written down. 

To everyone who is reading along: I see all the hits on this story and all the kudos and bookmarks and I am SO HAPPY. I have never had any WIP that got so much traffic and so much positive responses. I am really flattered and I hope I can live up to your expectations with the next couple of chapters (there might be about 3 or 4 more depending on how long I can make them and how well the plot flows) and also with the next book (I have an amazing bookshop scene in my head that will have to happen at the beginning of Book II and I have fully fleshed out scenes from Book IV and Book VII waiting to be spun into the larger tapestry. So I am definitely forced to keep this story going just for the sake of these scenes).

@fernitron007: And I can only repeat: I am so glad you like it!

@aruna_anja: Thank you so much! Yeah, I always thought we don't see enough of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. The focus seemed to be very much on Gryffindor throughout the entire series and H and R never got enough coverage to be more than a nice bit of background info. I hope I can change this a bit.

@yodumbledorewheresmyletter: Thank you :-)

@AwkwardAndUncomfortable: I am so glad that my depiction of Draco in this works for so many people although he's a little bit different from canon-Draco already (and might shift some more in the future). He and Hermione impact each other, I guess. Friends always do that. She's not really 100% canon either. I think you can tell at some points in this chapter.

 


	13. Forbidden Forest

**Book I - Chapter 13 – The Forbidden Forest**

The popularity of Hermione and Draco in Ravenclaw had dropped quite a bit after their house mates had found out who had lost them 100 points in one single night. The only thing that kept the others from shouting abuse at them was the fact that Gryffindor had also lost 100 points. That way, it was now a draw between Slytherin and Ravenclaw to win the house cup whilst Hufflepuff was on third place and Gryffindor had dropped to the bottom.

“It's going to be a close race this year”, commented Fred while they were enjoying the evening sun on the staircase in front of the main entrance.

They had been joined by George, who had brought the news that Norbert had safely arrived in Romania. About fifteen minutes later, Pansy had also dropped by. She had grown tired of the hotly contested chess party of Draco against Theo and Blaise. The young Malfoy was playing both of his best friends simultaneously down by the lake and pretty much all of Slytherin had gathered around their chess board.

“Nothing really happens though”, Pansy had exclaimed and dropped onto the stairs between George and Fred. “They are staring at that board for hours between the moves. It would be fun to watch it in time lapse, but in real time, one will grow roots before there's a decision.”

George grinned and held out a box of chocolates to her. Pansy frowned and quickly looked up to Hermione. The last time she had taken a lemon drop from Fred it had stuck to her tongue as if it had been glued there for about an hour and made it impossible to speak. George had noticed her glance and grinned even wider.

“They're just normal chocolates”, he said. “I promise. I got them from Angelina because I won a bet at our last Quidditch practice.”

Hermione noticed Pansy's mouth twitch at the mention of Angelina Johnson. She caught Fred's eyes. He had seen it too and winked.

“So. Tonight's the night”, George said, turning around to Hermione. “You're going to enter the Forbidden Forest.”

“It's a truly amazing thing”, said Fred. “It's forbidden to go in there, because there are things in it that might kill you if you're careless enough and then they send you in there as a punishment? When George and I went into the forest last year, we had to clean the goblets in the trophy room. How is that fair?”

George sighed, closed his eyes and leaned back. The warm yellow sunlight made it look as if he had even more freckles than usual.

“Oh yeah, the trophy room. That was almost as much fun as when they made us scrub the floors in the basement without using magic after we had had that little competition with Peeves on the second floor.”

Fred took a piece of chocolate from the box and handed another one to Hermione.

“Hey, that one was so much better. The mice were pretty cool to watch.”

Suddenly there was a loud cheer from the lake and a loud howl from two boys that sounded a lot like someone's honour had just been damaged quite a bit.

“I guess that means Draco just defated Theo and Blaise”, Hermione concluded.

“Gosh he'll be insufferable for the next hours”, murmured Fred. “Let's hope something eats him in the forest tonight so we won't have to endure his cocky boasting for days or weeks to come.”

 

~*~*~*~

 

Hagrid awaited them in front of his hut. He had donned a fur coat that made him look like a bear. He had also brought the huge dog, Fang. It was quite a sight. In his right hand, the giant ground keeper was carrying a lamp. Another one was dangling from his belt.

“Hello Harry”, he said, smiling brightly at his favourite pupil. “Ron, Hermione, Draco. I guess we're good to go. Follow me.”

He went ahead. It was already the time of day when the last dark blue of the sky slowly started to fade to black. As soon as they had entered the shadow of the trees, Hagrid's lantern was the only light source available. Sometimes, when they came to a clearing, the pale moon would look down on them and a few twinkling stars were visible in the night sky. It was pretty cold. Hermione was glad for the warm knitted sweater she had gotten from Mrs Weasley. She could feel Draco shivering next to her though. For some reason, being part of nobility seemed to come with the slight drawback of not owning any sensible clothing. She wished she already knew how to warm up air by magic. She had read about the spell that did it but she had not yet tried to perform it. She only knew how to make fire, but that would not help much as long as they kept moving.

Something rustled in the bushes to their right. Ron made a noise that sounded like a choking pig. He was trembling so hard from fear that Hermione could see it even in the dim light of the lantern. She heard Draco take in a sharp breath next to her when the sound repeated itself, this time louder, closer. Draco Malfoy, afraid in the dark. It might have been surprising to some of his followers, the pupils who believed he was some kind of tough, mature, cool demi-god. Hermione knew better though. She walked on, consciously altering her path a little so their arms brushed against each other. He turned his face towards her and met her gaze. She could see the fear in his eyes and smiled to reassure him they would be all right. She was not afraid. This was Hagrid''s realm. The ground keeper knew his way around. As long as Hagrid was with them, there was no need to panic.

As if he had heard her thoughts, the giant man stopped in his stride and turned around. While he started explaining to them what their task this night would be – to find out what it was that injured the unicorns in the forest – he lit the second lamp and handed it to Harry. Then he showed them some blood stains on the leaves of a short bush. The unicorn blood shone like silver in the moonlight.

“Two of yeh will come with me. Two of yeh will take Fang.”

“I'm coming with you”, Ron said immediately.

Hermione and Harry exchanged a glance. It was clear that Harry felt he was to blame for Hermione's and Draco's detentions, because it had been his idea to let her in on the secret in the first place. But they also knew that Draco and Ron should not be left alone together. Not even if there was an adult present in their company. Hermione gulped and nodded. She had made a decision.

“Me and Draco are taking Fang”, she said.

She took the lantern from Harry and the leash from Hagrid and motioned Draco to stay by her side. The boy's face was white as a sheet. She could see him struggling, trying not to look too scared. As soon as Hagrid and the other two boys were out of sight, she stopped in her stride.

“I guess it's better if we both hold on to this dog. He's gigantic. If he runs off, I'll just be dragged behind him. I'll never be able to hold him back on my own”, she said.

She knew Draco could see through the pretense. He had not ended up in Ravenclaw for nothing. He was smarter than most people and he knew a stalking-horse when he saw one. With a half smile, he stretched out his hand. His fingers closed around the leash right next to hers.

They walked down the path in silence. Now and then the hooting of an owl or some small animal rustling in the undergrowth made them start, but after about an hour Hermione's heart rate had returned to normal. This forest was less scary than she had imagined. It was just a forest after dark. Just when she had convinced herself that there was absolutely no need to worry, she noticed the blood stains.

This time, they weren't only a few drops among the leaves, huge smears could be seen on most of the beech trees around them and a trace was visible on the ground. It followed the path, then turned slightly to the right following a smaller path.

Hermione hesitated. Hagrid had told them to call him if they found anything. But they had not found it yet. They had only found a lot of blood. She gripped Draco's hand and followed the narrow path. It opened into a clearing. The moon and the stars shed light on a scene that was so peaceful and cruel at the same time it made Hermione gasp. Fang let out a howl and ran off. Both Hermione and Draco fell over from the pull of the leash on their wrists and landed on their faces. When they looked up the scene was still the same.

A figure in a dark cloak was kneeling over a small four legged animal with silver fur. The unicorn was breathing heavily. It's eyes were fixed on the tree line. They seemed to plead for help but what help could two first-year pupils provide for a dying creature. The figure reacted to Fang's escape – the dog had made an awful lot of noise – and looked up. Neither Hermione nor Draco could see it's face under the great black hood, but Hermione felt a shiver running down her spine.

Who killed a unicorn? How black did your soul have to be to kill a being that was all purity and goodness? The figure stood up and slowly walked towards where Draco and Hermione were lying on the ground. Hermione could feel her heart race. She felt Draco's fingers clenching hers. They both held their breath, hoping the stranger would come to the conclusion that Fang had been alone. Just then, they heard galloping hooves behind them. The hooded figure stood for a second, then turned on the spot and headed off in the opposite direction as several Zentaurs thundered into the clearing. Three of them gave charge to the fleeing figure, the fourth turned on his heel and looked down on Hermione and Draco.

“The forest is not safe”, he said with a warm voice. “You should get back to Hagrid.”

He motioned to them to follow him and led them in the direction in which the groundkeeper, Ron and Harry had headed. His name, they learned, was Firenze. Him and his herd of centaurs had lived in the Forbidden Forest for a long time. They knew about the slaying if the unicorns and were concerned about it.

They had only been walking for about a quarter of an hour when they saw Hagrid and the boys coming towards them.

“There yeh are!”, Hagrid's voice thundered above their heads. “Fang came chasin' down the path, so I thought I'd better be lookin'...”

The ground keeper stopped mid sentence. He had realized whom they were with.

“Firenze”, he said.

“You should get these children out of the forest”, Firenze said in a rough voice that sounded much less gentle than the one he had used around Hermione and Draco. “It is not safe here.”

His gaze lingered on Harry Potter for a long moment. The boy was massaging the lightning-shaped scar on his forehead as if he had migraines.

“Harry Potter should not be here, Hagrid. I should not talk to you about this and I will be in trouble even for warning you. But something – or someone – is slaying unicorns in this forest.”

Hermione's head was racing. Unicorn blood. She had read about unicorn blood. It had strong medical powers and could prolong someone's life, even if that person was about to die. But killing a unicorn was unforgivable and thus any life gained from unicorn blood was always accursed.

She saw Harry's pained face. He looked almost ill. The boy who lived. A backfiring Avada Kedavra, someone drinking unicorn blood in the neighbourhood of Hogwarts. The Philosopher's Stone, enabling it's owner to brew the draught of eternal life. She took in a deep breath. From Harry's and Draco's looks she could tell they had done their maths as well and come to the same conclusion. How had they not seen this before?

Voldemort must have survived the curse, he was wounded, desperate. Dumbledore had hidden the stone in the castle because it was said that the only wizard that You Know Who had ever feared was the headmaster himself. He was trying to get the stone, but he would not be able to get it on his own. Not, if he was weak enough to resort to unicorn blood as a means to staying alive. But who could it be?

 

~*~*~*~

 

“It's Snape”, Harry said once again and threw a pebble into the lake. “He also tried to hex me during Quidditch. He tried to finish me off.”

It was a warm day. They had met at the shore to discuss what had happened the night before because none of them had slept well and because sometimes it helped to talk about things and if it was just to confirm what you already knew.

Hermione and Draco exchanged a glance. Harry's obsession with Snape was one thing they had quickly come to know. And although they could not deny the Potion's master had a particular dislike for Harry Potter, they both doubted the boy's theory.

“It would make sense”, said Ron again. “He used to be on You-know-who's side.”

Hermione shook her head.

“Although I am not as convinced as many other people that Dumbledore is infallible, I can't believe he would have been taken in by Snape. He believed that Snape repented and he still lets him teach at Hogwarts...”

“Though not Defense against the Dark Arts”, Ron chipped in.

It was really hard to plan things if you had Ronald Weasley around. Hermione phantasized about punching him in the face, but up to now had been able to remain jovially around him. She was proud of Draco. Knowing how much he resented the “Weasle” she had to admit he was displaying an extraordinary amount of self-restraint.

“Even if it is Snape”, she continued, “which I think is very unlikely, and be it just because the first suspicion would always fall on him, I still believe that the stone is safe. Dumbledore will have seen to it. He will have made sure there are protections around it.”

Harry nodded.

“Perhaps you're right”, he said.

And Hermione could tell he did not think she was right at all.

 

~*~*~*~

That evening she was doing some last-minute revisions for the exams, when Fred joined her on the window seat, took the book from her hands and slammed it shut, before carefully placing it on the seat next to him. Hermione liked how Fred handled books. While Draco could be a destructive force around them and tended to leave them lying face down instead of inserting bookmarks, Fred was just as bibliophile as herself. She had once seen him open a brand new copy he had gotten from the library. At first, his fingers had traced the spine, then the cover. Then, he had slowly opened it, painstakingly making sure that he did not bend it any further than 90 degrees. He had inhaled the scent of paper and ink as if it was the odour of an expensive perfume. On the surface, Fred was a goofy, funny guy, but Hermione had seen beneath that surface and found someone whom she would have trusted with her life without batting an eyelash. Fred was incredibly loyal and he could tell when something was troubling her without her saying so. When her and Draco had come back from detention, he had been lounging in one of the arm chairs in the common room. He had waited for their return and it had taken him a single glance to notice, they had experienced more than just a few hours between dark trees.

“You still look a bit shaken”, he said now.

“I am afraid Harry could be right and that there is a possibility of someone – not necessarily Snape, but someone in the castle – getting to the stone.”

Fred nodded.

“I thought as much.”

She looked up and met his gaze.

“I read about You-know-who and about the Death Eaters, Fred. I am Muggle-born. Muggle-borns were their favourite target.”

She took a deep breath.

“I am afraid.”

Fred sighed and nodded again. Then, he suddenly leaned over and pulled her into a hug.

“I wish I could say, you don't need to”, he murmured.

He left his arm around her shoulders for the rest of the evening and questioned her on Transfiguration and Potions to take her mind off the sudden threat that was so much more real than any exam could ever be. His presence was soothing. With him there, she could push the fear and the panic back and focus on the immediate task at hand. When they finally decided it was time to catch some sleep, Fred ruffled her hair and smiled.

“You're a damned smart witch, Hermione. If you don't end up top in every class, I will eat one of George's language-locking lemon drops”, he said.

 

_A./N. I promised, there would be more, so there is more. I hope you like it. The scene in the forest is so important and it was not easy to get it into a shape that worked for this universe. There will be some Draco-centric stuff again in the next chapter I think. It will always be mainly Hermione's POV, but I sometimes like to alternate this, because you can go so much deeper with a character. I am also aware there must be some Fred-centric stuff at some point in the future. I promise, there will be. I hope you enjoyed this as much as I still enjoy writing it. Thank you for reading and liking and commenting on this story!!! I have never had anything that had more than 1500 views as a WIP and it makes me so happy to see how many people have already left kudos on this! :-)_

 


	14. Through the Trapdoor

**Book I - Chapter 14 – Through the Trapdoor**

None of them would later be able to tell how they managed to concentrate on their exams. The looming prospect of Voldemort crashing into the castle to retrieve the Philospher's Stone was enough to keep their thoughts occupied when they did not have to focus on school subjects or with how not to notice how hot it had become. Draco felt like he was going to melt. The thick stone walls of the building had long managed to keep most of the heat outside, but after the sun had been burning down for more than a week, the air inside had heated up significantly.

The oral examinations went well enough. In Charms, they had to bewitch a pineapple so it would tap dance across the table. Neither Draco nor Hermione had any issues with that, but they heard Pansy discuss the task with Greg in the hallway.

“Do you think he will take points from me because it danced the can-can instead?”

“I don't know. Mine just bopped on the spot.”

Professor McGonagall had them transform a mouse into a snuff box. Draco was slightly annoyed by the fact that his snuff box was not as shiny as he had wanted it to be but had stayed slightly mouse-grey. Hermione's box was perfect, of course. If it had been any other student in their year, he'd have sworn to make their life hell, but he could not really hate Hermione for being better at school than him. She beat him by inches only and she was never boasting about it, so it was okay.

Snape made them brew Forgetfulness Potion and breathed down their necks while they were working. Michael Corner lost his cool and threw in some herb that should not have been in it. Five minutes later, the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws witnessed Snape only just managing a protection charm around the cauldron before it's contents combusted shaking the walls of the dungeons.

“Well at least it was good entertainment”, Hermione commented on their way out. “Although I do not appreciate Snape taking ten points from Ravenclaw for this.”

They met Ron and Harry in he hallway a couple of times. Harry looked ill. He was white as a sheet and more than once, his fingertips were at his forehead, massaging the scar again. Hermione heard from George that the boy suffered from insomnia and almost drove Neville and his other room mates up the wall with it.

Draco had not slept well the first couple of nights after their encounter in the forest either. He had seen the hooded figure who had drunk the unicorn blood get up and come towards them over and over again. More than once he had woken up right at the moment when he thought if the stranger came on step closer he'd finally be able to see his face.

Was it really You-know-who? And if it was the Dark Lord where did that leave him and his family? The Malfoys did not speak much about it, but Draco knew that they had been loyal servants to Voldemort. They had escaped prosecution by a combination of cleverness and luck. Officially, Lucius had seen the error of his ways before the threat had found a sudden end when Voldemort's killing curse had not killed Harry Potter. But Lucius' believes had not changed much. Draco's father still stood for the most conservative political views in the Wizarding world. He saw Muggles as not much more than animals and despised the blood traitors who fraternized with them.

Draco had told his mother about Hermione in his letters, but begged her not to tell his father. Narcissa was different. Narcissa had grown up in the Black family and her loyalty lay with her kin. She was a lioness, calm, but willing to fight to protect her closest relations from any outward threat. When Draco had told her about his growing friendship to Hermione and how Hermione had become a part of the Slytherin gang, she had not said a word about the girl's blood status but told him she was glad he had someone whom he could rely on. Nowadays she usually finished her letters with a “say hello to Hermione from me”.

It had never occurred to Draco that there could be circumstances under which his friendship to a Muggle-born might become more problematic than displeasing his father always was. But if the Dark Lord rose again, he'd gather his old followers around him and Draco would have to make a choice. He did not even want to think about it.

After their final exam, he had followed Hermione, the twins and Lee Jordan to the lake. It was still too hot to live. There was a giant squid sun-bathing on the shore and the older boys started tickling it. Hermione took off her shoes, sat down on the landing and let her feet dangle into the water.

“You wouldn't believe they are older than us”, she said with a smile that betrayed her affection. “They behave like five year olds.”

Draco grinned.

“You know what, I'm glad the exams are over”, he said, sitting down next to her.

“Didn't Vincent want to talk to you after History of Magic?”, the girl asked.

Draco shook his head.

“Vincent likes to talk over every single exam question. It's the most annoying thing on this planet and it makes me sick. So I thought I'd keep my distance from him, until he's discussed them with everyone else and has grown tired of it.”

A couple of paces away, Harry Potter and Ron came down the path.

“Here comes trouble”, murmured Draco when the two boys noticed them and walked up.

When he saw Hermione's expression, he laughed.

“Don't worry, Hermione. It's far too hot. Even if I wanted to hex the Weasel, I could not find the energy to do it right now.”

Harry and Ron sat down next to them. Harry was rubbing his forehead again.

“Seriously man, you should get that checked by Madam Pomfrey”, Ron exclaimed. “You've been having a headache for weeks now.”

“I don't think Madam Pomfrey would be able to cure this”, said Harry. “I have had it since the day in the forest. I guess it's a warning of some sort.”

Hermione frowned.

“It might be. Curses leave traces. As nobody except you ever survived the Avada Kedavra, there's no precedent case, but I think it might be possible it remembers the signature of the man who caused it or something similar.”

“It drives me up the wall”, said Harry.

“It's not a direct warning in that case, though”, said Hermione. “The stone is in the castle and it's safe. There will be more than Fluffy guarding it. And even if it were just the dog, Hagrid would never let Dumbledore down and tell anyone...”

“He told us about the stone”, Harry interrupted her. “He didn't do it intentionally, it just slipped. So how do we know...”, he stopped and his eyes went wide. “Oh damned.”

“What is it?”, Ron asked.

“Norbert”, said Harry and jumped to his feet. “How could we be this blind? Hagrid has been talking about how much he would love to have a dragon for ages and suddenly someone appears and sells him a dragon egg?”

Draco and Hermione were on their feet as well in one fluent movement.

“We have to go down to Hagrid's”, Hermione suggested pulling on her shoes as quickly as she could. “We have to make sure.”

They ran down to the hut where Hagrid was shelling peas in the sun. He looked up when he heard them approach.

“Ah, hello”, he said smiling. “Did ya finish yer exams? Want some tea? Or pineapple juice?”

Harry panted. Draco could not help his brain observing that the Gryffindor boy was incredibly untrained. Even Hermione, who was not a sports person either, was not as much out of breath. Harry asked the giant man about the night he won Norbert and with every bit that Hagrid rememberd, Draco felt his spine grow colder.

“He told him”, Hermione cried out exasperated as they walked back up to the castle. “He just told a complete stranger how to get past that three-headed beast. I can't believe it!”

“We need to tell Dumbledore”, said Harry as they stormed into the castle.

This, though, turned out to be a bit of a problem, as none of them knew where the headmaster's office was.

“McGonagall then”, Draco suggested. “She's deputy headmaster, isn't she.”

Hermione nodded. But how could they find the teacher? Just in that moment, George and Fred came crashing into the entrance hall behind them.

“Merlin's greasy beard”, Fred exclaimed. “Why are the four of you running like madmen?”

It took three sentences to let the twins in on the issue at hand.

“We need to find Dumbledore or Professor McGonagall”, Harry finished.

Fred nodded and rummaged in his trouser pockets, then quickly went into a corner – to tell the map he was up to no good without giving the secret of the parchment away to Harry and Ron – and came back a minute later.

“Dumbledore's nowhere in the castle”, he said. “But McGonagall is having a conversation with Madam Pince in the library.”

“But how...?” started Ron.

His older brother shook his head.

“Ask me no questions and I will tell you no lies, Ronnikins.”

All of them made their way up to the library. Harry was leading their group closely followed by Ron, then Fred and George. Draco and Hermione came last. George bent over towards his twin.

“Dumbledore's nowhere in the castle?”, he repeated.

Fred nodded with a grim expression on his face.

“Are you absolutely sure?”

“Brother, you've known me for all of our lives. I ended up in Ravenclaw because I have a brain and know how to use it. Tell me, would I overlook Dumbledore?”

George did not answer but nodded.

“Then we have a problem.”

Draco knew what the twins were thinking and he knew that Hermione had also come to the same conclusion as the three of them when he met her eyes. If Dumbledore had left the castle, there was nobody left whom You-Know-Who was afraid of. And that meant that they could be pretty sure whoever was Lord Voldemorts ally in the castle would try to get past Fluffy tonight. Professor McGonagall confirmed their suspicions. The headmaster had indeed been called from the castle. McGonagall seemed to be less disturbed by the news than they had hoped she would be. Her main concern was why they knew about the stone. But she made a point of telling them that there were several protections in place around it. Of course there were. Nobody was dumn enough to rely on a monster to keep anything safe. There would be enchantments, strong magic. But would it suffice to keep the dark wizard at bay?

“We will have to make sure Voldemort doesn't get the stone”, Harry said.

The Weasleys winced, Hermione bit her lip and Draco felt a shudder run through him. Lord Voldemorts name was intimidating to everyone. It was not only the meaning of it, although calling yourself the flight of death was already quite impressive. Somehow nobody used the name. Most wizards went with You-know-who. Draco had grown up in an environment that consisted of people who had either sympathized with Voldemort's aims or had been part of the Death Eaters. If they ever mentioned him, which they hardly did, he was referred to as “The Dark Lord” which indicated obedience and respect.

“Don't call him that”, Ron murmured. “I told you before you should not do that.”

Harry met his eyes with a steady gaze.

“Dumbledore calls him by his name as well. He says there's no need to be afraid of a name.”

Hermione sighed. There was no point though in pointing out to Harry that he was only a boy while Dumbledore was one of the greatest wizards the world had ever seen. Instead, she opted they should make a plan to avoid the worst from happening. Of course, Harry suggested someone should keep an eye on Snape. The choice fell on Hermione.

“He likes you and he'll believe if you ask him something about potions”, he explained.

He didn't though. Hermione came back only an hour later and shook her head. Snape had pretty much told her that he had considered her too smart to use such an obvious lie.

“He said he did not care what I really wanted but that he'd give me five seconds to get out of his sight.”

Fred and George had patrolled in front of the door to the infamous forbidden corridor but had been caught out by McGonagall. So it was down to one option: They had to get to the stone first. It seemed to be obvious to Harry and Ron that this was the only way out and the twins and Hermione did not need much convincing, but Draco stayed silent. In his head, turmoil had broken loose. He felt as if his destiny was slipping away. He had always had a firm grasp on his life, had always known where he was coming from and where he was going, but this was difficult. He knew his father's views about Muggle borns were narrow-minded ever since Hermione Granger had walked into the all-Slytherin compartment on the Hogwarts express. If it was really Voldemort who was after the stone – which, all things considered, was very likely the case – he was But still...

“I'm out of this”, he heard himself saying. “I can't be a part of this. I'm not going to tell anyone what you're up to, but I'm not coming with you tonight.”

Even while he was saying it, he felt as if something was choking him. In Hermione's eyes understanding and disappointment fought out a battle. Ron just looked at him in disgust and spat out. Harry only shrugged as if he had not expected anything different. Of course not. He'd probably been told about the stand-offishness of the Malfoy clan every single day since he had befriended the Weasle.

 

~*~*~*~

Draco had gone to bed early. He'd not said good night to Hermione and Fred who were once again perched at the window seat. They had watched the sky turn orange, then blue, then black and were passing the time until everyone was asleep with a party of wizard chess. As none of them could really concentrate, their forces were quite evenly matched on a very low level. Suddenly Hermione shook her head and pushed the board away.

“I can't focus”, she said. “There's about a million things that could go wrong tonight and us all getting expelled is not the worst outcome.”

Fred sighed.

“I know. But Harry's right. Dumbledore might have listened to us but none of the other teachers will take heed of a warning coming from a couple of first and second year students, especially not McGonagall. She's brilliant but she's also very much a grown-up and underestimates her students constantly.”

He could see that something else was bothering her: Something that had nothing at all to do with them going after te stone and everything to do with Malfoy, the conflicted little aristocrat who was caught between his friendship for a Muggle-born and his family's belief that only pure bloods were true wizards. The classic hero, the classic villain – it only depended in which direction the coin would fall down when it finally stopped spinning. Heads, villain – tails, hero. Draco would be great as a character in a novel, Fred thought. Hermione as well, intelligent, a beauty in her own rights – which she would have denied because she never seemed to see anything about her appearance as pleasing – and a strong minded, self-confident girl. She was no princess, but she'd make an excellent bourgeoise. Fred imagined he was no novel-material unless someone needed a witty jester.

“Draco's not going to sell us out”, he said reassuringly. “He said he would not do it and although he's not my favourite person in the world, he has never been a liar.”

She leaned her head against his shoulder for a mere second. He could smell lavender and sandalwood. What a strange combination.

“I know”, she murmured. “I just wish I could make this easier for him. If we are right and it is really You-know-who out there, chances are Draco will be forced to choose. He's so eager for his dad's approval. And his mother loves him dearly whatever else her faults may be. I'd have wished for him not to get into a position where it will be his friends or his family.”

Fred understood the depth of the problem only too well and he'd have been happy to be able to provide a satisfactory solution. As there was none, he did what he always did. With a wide grin, he nudged her into the side and suggested she could join “their lot”. She laughed. Mission accomplished.

They were supposed to meet Harry in front of the door to the closed corridor. Harry had not asked questions when Fred had assured him they'd be able to find their way from the Ravenclaw tower without bumping into either Mrs Norris or Filch. Hermione lit up her wand while the red-head spread out the map to check where they were. Filch was up on the Astronomy Tower while Mrs Norris was in the cellar. Fred also made sure that Peeves was far away wreaking havoc in the dungeons before he folded the map again and had Hermione dim the light. The young witch had looked for a charm to muffle their steps and found one that had been easy enough to manage after a few tries. It was kind of weird to feel the cold stone floor through the soles of their shoes but not hear their own steps.

When they got to the door behind which Fluffy was waiting, they did not see anyone at first, but then Harry pulled down the invisibility cloak. He was alone, his glasses were askew and his nose was bleeding.

“Where are my lovely brothers?”, Fred asked surprised. “And why do you look as if you encountered another Troll?”

“Ran into the guys from both of our dormitories”, whispered Harry. “Seems like Neville Longbottom overheard Ron and me and came to the conclusion we'd head out tonight. The Gryffindors aren't eager on losing any more house points, so he alerted Jordan, Finnegan and the lot. They got the better of Ron and George. Stunned them, I guess. I only escaped because I pulled the cloak out quick enough.”

Hermione sighed.

“The three of us then”, she said and pointed her wand at the door lock. “Alohomora. By the way I am not going to sing.”

She did not have to as Harry had managed to acquire the flute Hagrid used to pipe his beasty to sleep. It turned out they were not the first ones to enter the corridor though. Whoever was after the stone had already managed to get past the three-headed hound by the means of an enchanted harp that only just stopped playing when they entered. Almost immediately, the dog started sniffling and the head next to Fred opened a big blood-shot eye.

“Ummm, Harry, I guess it is time...”

He did not have to finish the sentence. Harry had already put the recorder to his lips and had started playing. Fluffy's eye closed again and the dog started snoring. Between its paws, the trapdoor was clearly visible. One of the hind paws rested on top of it. Fred did not hesitate but used his entire weight to shift it to the side. The dog did not even blink as Harry kept on playing the worst tune ever composed in the galaxy.

“If you considered becoming a professional musician in the future Harry”, Fred said, opening the trap door, “I beg you to reconsider your choice of instrument. The flute doesn't seem to be quite your thing.”

He looked down into the opening. Darkness. No sign of how deep the drop was or what was waiting at the bottom.

“How fun”, he murmured. “Just in case I die in this and one of you gets out: Give my love to my mum, tell Ginny to look after George and replace me as well as she can as his partner in crime, and kick Percy's butt from me.”

Then he jumped.

 

_A./N.: I wanted to have a loooooong chapter that contained this as well as their way to the Stone. But I would not have been able to get the weekly post up. I hope I am doing the right thing by splitting this up so you have something new to read every week. Also: As I promised: A bit of Fred-centered stuff in here. Thanks to everyone who read and left kudos and commented since the last update. I am so happy that there are so many people reading this. I'm kind of curious who my readers are, so I'd really like to know which country you're from. I'm German and am still looking for a native speaker to beta this story and the following ones for spelling mistakes, stuff you "just don't say like this" and the obvious grammatical bullshit that might happen when I write while I am tired. xX Juwe_


	15. The Philosopher's Stone

**Book I - Chapter 15 – The Philosopher's Stone**

 

“All right”, Hermione heard Fred shout out of the hole. “I landed on something soft.”

Hermione and Harry exchanged a glance. Harry was still playing the flute and nodded to signal she should go first. Without hesitating another second, she followed Fred through the trap door. The landing was indeed soft. She rolled to the side just in time for Harry to land in the exact spot where she had been a second earlier. From above, they could hear a growl as Fluffy awoke from his slumber.

“What is this?”, Harry asked.

It was pitch black around them, but Fred had already got his wand out.

“Lumos”, he said.

In the dim light they could make out a plant of some sort. It was huge, big enough to cover half of the floor. It had rubbery leaves and seemed to move although there was no wind. Just when Hermione's brain came to the conclusion that she had heard of this herb before, she felt green tentacles wrap around her wrists.

“Darned!”, Fred cried out.

The plant had already immobilised his legs, but his wand hand was still free. He started to kick, but it only led to the thing wrapping more and more tentacles around him. Harry wasn't doing too well either. He was vigorously attempting to free himself and only got more and more tangled up.

“Stop fighting it!”, Hermione shouted.

It had dawned on her, what they were facing.

“It's a Devil's Snare! It'll sense your panic. It just strangles you quicker of you struggle.”

“Oh lovely”, murmured Fred sarcastically. “Good to know what it is that is trying to kill us.”

“If you would listen to anything Professor Sprout told you in Herbology, you'd know what to do”, Hermione snapped back.

“And that would be?”

“Fire!”, said Hermione. “And warmth.”

Her left arm was still free, but her right hand had been caught. She did not know whether it was possible to use your wand with your weaker hand. But Fred was quicker than her.

“Incendio!”, he cried pointing at the foot of the plant.

A jet of flames erupted from the tip of his wand and set the Snare on fire. It did not burn well though, but gave off thick smoke fumes. It was distracted enough though to let go of it's victims. They got away from the burning plant as quickly as they could. Both Hermione and Harry drew their wands now and lit them up. A stone passageway led away from the chamber they had landed in. It was the only way out, so there was no debate where they had to go. Their footsteps echoed from the stone hewn walls.

“It's kind of weird, you know”, Fred said with a frown. “It really did not feel like we fell down three floors but we must have. Me and George know every crevice in this castle. This kind of tunnel only exists on dungeon level or below that.”

“Can we have the lecture on the architectural principles of Hogwarts later?”, asked Harry.

He was clearly on the edge already. Hermione sighed. Harry Potter, the boy who always gets into trouble because he has a hero-complex.

The next room they entered was brightly lit although there were no obvious light sources in it. Little, glittering birds were flying around in it, moving their wings at different speeds. Some were so tiny that they had the flurry of colibris, others reminded Hermione of sparrows. Behind the swarm of birds, they could see a door at the other end of the room.

Harry watched the birds, his brow wrinkled.

“They could attack us if we cross the room”, he considered loudly.

Fred nodded.

“Possible. But if you've got eagle eyes, my young friend, you'll find that they won't need to attack you to keep you from going through that door.”

“What do you...”, Hermione started, following one of the fluttering things with her eyes. “Oh.”

They were keys. All the tiny birds were keys. And one of them had to fit the lock of the door. A lock that they would surely find closed and unlikely to open to Alohomora.

“So... what do we do?”, she asked looking around.

It was Harry who found the broomsticks.

“Hunt them”, he said. “Find the one which fits. It must be big, probably silver, same as the handle.”

He tossed a broom towards Fred, took a second one and held it out to Hermione.

“She's the worst flyer on this planet”, said Fred. “Have her look out for the right one and point it out to us.”

Hermione had to admit he was right. She'd not have been much help in the air. She was helpful on the ground though. Ruling out the Keys who were too small or had the wrong colour, she could narrow their choices down to about two dozen keys. The boys had been up in the air for five minutes, when she spotted the key.

“Fred! To your left! The blue one! It has a broken wing!”

Fred might have been a great Beater, but he was lost as a Seeker. The key slipped through his fingers, turned on the spot and shot in the other direction. Harry was on it in a second and landed gracefully right in front of the door, pushing it into the keyhole. It went rigid and let him turn it. The door unlocked with a snap. He waited for Hermione and Fred to join him then pulled the door open.

The next room was dark again. They could not see what was in it, but as soon as the door to the flying keys closed behind them, torches along the sides of the room lit up and revealed what the next challenge was.

“A Chess board!”, the three of them cried simultaneously.

It was indeed a huge chess board. The black and white tiles covered the whole floor from one end of the room to the other. The next door was at the far end of the room behind the white chessmen. None of the figures had a face. The smallest of them were seven feet tall. They had an air of brutality around them. Hermione shivered. She had a hunch she would not like this much.

“We will have to play ourselves across the room”, Fred murmured. “Neat. That looks like a very Minerva McGonagall thing to do. So we had Hagrid's Fluffy, the nasty Devil's Snare that Sprout put in the first room... the keys must have been Flitwick's idea. He likes that kind of glittery stuff. That's why he's always the one decorating the Great Hall for Halloweeen and Christmas.”

“But how do we play?”, Harry asked looking from one chess figure to the other. “Do we have to take your places?”, he asked one of the black bishops. The figure nodded.

It took them about five minutes to organize themselves. Hermione decided to play one of the castles, Fred went in as a knight and Harry went for one of the bishops. The figures who had been mounted on the huge black stone horses and the cloaked figure with the folded hands and the mitre on his head went to watch from the sidelines.

“We could need Draco now”, Hermione thought. “Him and Fred together would make absolutely sure we can't lose this game.”

But as it was, the best chess player they knew was not with them. It was down to three good players who would have to pull all their knowledge of strategy together to make up for one genious mind.

“White begins!”, Harry shouted towards the huge figures facing them.

One of the white pawns moved two steps forward.

Hermione met Fred's eye. He smiled at her, but she could sense his insecurity.

The game progressed and it turned out the sides were more or less evenly matched. A moment of shock came, when the second black knight was taken. Taken wasn't even the right word for it. The horse fell, buried the rider underneath it and was dragged off the field by the white faceless queen. It lay there motionless, a pile of deformed black stone.

“Damned”, Harry murmured and Hermione knew he was thinking the same as her. If any of them got taken, they might end up injured or even dead.

They managed to avoid this situation for quite a while though. It was strange to play chess in this way. Whilst it was not too difficult to see when one of the others was in danger, Hermione struggled with the fact that she was part of the game. Twice, Harry and Fred spotted she was due for an attack just in time to rescue her. On the other hand, the boys faced the same problem and had she not intervened, both of them had ended up taken by a vicious move of he white queen. They had been playing for about 45 minutes when all three of them realized that they had not spotted a trap early enough to circumvent it. The only way they could still win the game was to sacrifice their second knight and all three of them knew what that meant. Fred gulped audibly.

“Let's get it over with!”, he said dryly.

Hermione shook her head.

“We can't do this. You might...”

“Hermione. If you two want to have any chance to stop whoever is after the Stone from taking it, this is the only way.”

“But you might get yourself killed!”

“This is McGonagall's game. She'd never want to harm someone permanently. Knock them out, yes, but kill? That's way below her.”

His voice was quivering and she could see his eyes dart to the pile of immobile black figures at he side of the field. He gulped again, then pulled his shoulders back and spurred the black horse right in the white queen's line of attack. The figure did not hesitate a second. Her stone arm came crashing down, the horse tumbled and Fred flew a few meters through the air before landing on the black and white floor. The queen dragged him off the field by the ankle of his foot. The boy did not move an inch. His eyes were closed, his face pale in the torchlight. Hermione thought she could see blood, but she wasn't sure. And she was not allowed to leave her spot yet. The game was still ongoing. Three moves later, the white kind bowed down and lay his crown at Harry's feet. He stepped back and made the way clear for them to walk through the next door. Hermione turned around. She wanted to run back and see whether Fred was all right, but the White figures had closed the lines behind them. The only way was forward.

“Fred”, she whispered.

“He'll be okay”, Harry said reassuringly.

She heard that he was not as sure as he wanted to be. When he noticed she was still hesitating, he took her hand.

“Come on”, he said. “He did this so we still have a chance.”

She nodded. He was right, of course. But in her head she heard Mrs Weasley's voice screaming at her that she had left her son behind to die. She needed to focus!

“Go on!”, she said and Harry pushed open the door.

It led to a narrow passageway that was almost completely blocked by an unconscious troll.

“Lovely”, said Harry, carefully stepping around it. “I'm glad someone already took care of this.”

Hermione hesitated. Troll. A Troll. Quirrell knew about Trolls. He had defeated Trolls... and he had reacted quite unlike the person she had read about when the Mountain Troll had been let loose in the dungeons. The jigsaw pieces fell into place one by one.

“Harry”, she said calmly, following the Gryffindor boy to the next door. “It's not Snape.”

He looked at her with a frown, his hand already resting on the door handle.

“What?”

“We are not up against Snape. He's not You-know-who's servant in this. He's not the one who is after the Stone.”

“But...?”

“It's Quirrell”, Hermione explained quickly. “It's been him all the time, but I didn't see it. The Troll! It was him who let it loose as a distraction while he tried to get into the corridor. Snape knew! Or at least he suspected something. That's why he followed him that day. We saw them.”

She just checked herself in time before she could give away the secret of the Marauder's map.

Harry shook his head.

“You have a much higher opinion of Snape than I do, Hermione. I know you don't want him to be quilty because you think he's a good teacher and all that, but... he hexed me at the Quidditch match! Remember? He tried to kill me!”

“He whispered an incantation, yes!”, said Hermione. “But do you know what he was doing? Does any of us know? I sat him on fire, but I also ran into Professor Quirrell on the way.”  
  


“But... if Quirrell is behind it...”

“He's much more likely to obey You-know-who in his current state. Who would obey a wizard who is closer to death than life, who has had to drink unicorn blood to survive? Snape is a lot of things and I don't really know what his personal problem with you is all about, but I don't think he'd be likely to fall for promises that might never be kept...”

Harry sighed.

“You might be right. But we will never know if we stay here any longer.”

He pushed the door open.

This room was dark, and dusty. In the middle stood a table with seven differently shaped bottles. As soon as they passed the threshold a fire sprang up in the doorway behind them. At the same second a doorway on the other side of the room was lit with black flames. A roll of parchment was lying on the table next to the bottles. It had been flattened with two of the bottles so it didn't roll up. Another clue. This was clearly the trap that Snape had set up and he would not have had to read his own riddle to know which was the right bottle.

Hermione and Harry read the scroll through twice, then Hermione nodded.

“Seven bottles in total. Two are wine, three poison, two are safe. One gets us back through the violet flames, the other one gets us through the black fire.”

She walked up and down the table.

So, there was nettle wine on the right side to each bottle of poison. That meant that the bottle at the far right end was definitely not poisoned. The second on the left and the second on the right had the same contents... it took her about five minutes to figure it out.

“The smallest one gets you through the black flames”, she said holding it up. “There's only one sip left of it though.”

“And which one for the way back?”, Harry asked.

Hermione pointed to the rounded bottle at the right end of the line.

“This one.”

“You drink that, I'll take the small one”, he said. “Get Fred to Madame Pomfrey and try to either find Dumbledore or Professor McGonagall.”

“But...”

But you are only 11 years old, Harry. You are a child, a boy. Even if it's not Snape in there but Quirrel, you're up against an adult, a full grown wizard and even a full grown wizard with some help of You-know-who! He did not even let her start her rant. Without waiting another second, he just ran through the black flames.

“Harry Potter”, Hermione sighed. “You are an idiot.”

Then she drank a big gulp from the round bottle and went through the purple flames.

 

A./N.: This was difficult to do and I really hope I have nothing in it that would count as plagiarism. I did not explicitly copy stuff from the original, but I know the original so well, I might still have used the same phrasing (but I truly hope I didn't). One more chapter to come, then this project is drawing to an end (1 down, 6 to go,... and they only get longer). I hope you enjoy it!

@Liz: Thank you for commenting and for liking the story. I don't have tumblr. Never could get my head round it. I am the Facebook generation (yes, THAT old, I'm practically a grandmother) and I already didn't get the hype around twitter (I have an account but don't use it) and when tumblr started, I just didn't see the point.

@achuislemochroi: I'd be delighted to have you as my beta for the second book (or even for this one if you don't mind revising published work). I answered your comment with my e-mail address.

@fernitron007: Wow. Argentina :-) That is so awesome. And yeah, I think Draco's position in this AU is even worse than in the originals, so the problems must arise earlier. 

 


	16. Friendship

**Book I - Chapter 16 – Friendship**

Hermione could not remember how she had managed to get Fred back out of the corridor and past Fluffy. She was vaguely aware of the fact that although the boy was conscious again, he leaned on her with almost his full weight. The fall off the stone horse had left him with a broken leg and he gasped with pain every time his right foot touched the ground.

When she finally banged the door to the corridor shut just before Fluffy could sink his teeth into her shoulder, she was exhausted. There was no way she'd go any further. Her legs just gave way underneath her. But she did not have to. Someone had been waiting for them.

“Merlin's beard, Hermione! What happened? Are you all right? Why is Fred's leg broken? And where the hell is Potter?”

She had never been so happy to see Draco's white blond hair and narrow face. His genuine worry about her was enough to make her feel safe again.

“Get Dumbledore or McGonagall!”, she murmured. “Quick!”

For a second, Draco's dark grey eyes met hers. He seemed to consider asking more questions, saw the urge she felt and nodded, turned on the spot and ran off.

“He came after us”, Hermione murmured with disbelief in her voice.

“I have to admit, I did not expect him to have the guts”, Fred replied. “I might reconsider my opinion about him and his whole family... well, perhaps only about him, not about the rest of that lot.”

Hermione sighed and closed her eyes. She felt reality slipping away from her and let the darkness settle over her mind.

 

~*~*~*~

 

“I would not have made it without Hermione. She was brilliant, really.”

It was the ump-teenth time Harry Potter was telling his story. Interestingly the plot had not changed at all over the several times he had had to tell it to someone. Fred sometimes wondered how someone like Harry could exist on this planet. If it had been him in his place, he'd have been bragging about how he had single-handedly once more rescued Wizarding society. But no, Harry only praised the friends who had accompanied him. The final chapter, his encounter with Quirrell and You-know-who usually did not take up more than a sentence. Only Hermione, Fred, Ron and Dumbledore had heard the long and terrifying full version. It still sent shudders down Fred's spine to imagine Voldemort's face protruding from the back of Quirrell's head.

All of the students had gathered in the Great Hall for the end of term celebrations. Everyone would return home on the Hogwarts Express soon and spend the summer with their families. Hermione already knew she would not have to wait for autumn to see Fred again. Molly had invited her parents to a midsummer barbecue and had also asked them to let Hermione stay at the Burrow for a week or two before the start of next term so she could come along to Diagon Alley with all of the Weasleys.

Hermione was not too sure about Draco though. It was pretty possible she wouldn't see or hear from him for the entire duration of the holidays. He was very quiet these days – unless he walked into Ron, which made him return to his old sneering self in an instant. She knew he was struggling with what had happened and what it all meant. There was hope that Voldemort was gone for good, but from what Harry had said his spirit or whatever had been possessing Quirrell had flown away in agony but not died. Hermione hoped for her friend that they would be spared another confrontation with the dark wizard. If sides had to be chosen, Draco would be caught in between his loyalty to his father and their friendship. No child should have to make such a choice.

The Hall had been decorated in Slytherin colours prior to the celebration. But Dumbledore had decided to award some last points to those involved in the fight. Firstly, he gave 50 points to each Fred, Hermione and Harry. It was only fair and although some of the Slytherin students looked a bit annoyed, they seemed to accept that Ravenclaw should win the House Cup for a change. But then, Dumbledore awarded another total of fifty points to the Gryffindor boys under the leadership of Longbottom who had tried to stop Harry and Ron from walking out of the common room after the curfew. Even though he also gave fifteen points to Draco – who did not look as if he wanted to receive them – it still ended up with Gryffindor on top of everyone else.

Hermione gasped.

“But this is totally unfair. If Neville and his lot had succeeded in stopping Harry, the stone would have been stolen...”

Fred patted her shoulder.

“Leave it, Hermione. I told you once, I told you twice and I'll tell you a thousand times: Gryffindor is the favourite house of pretty much everyone and especially of Dumbledore and McGonagall. Want some pumpkin juice? And have some of this chocolate cake. It's delicious but it's also death by chocolate if you eat the whole slice.”

“Great way to die, though”, Michael Corner chimed in, ramming his fork into a double-sized piece.

 

~*~*~*~

 

“So, I guess you're not willing to share a compartment with George, Harry and Ron?”, Fred asked when they walked onto the platform.

The Hogwarts Express was waiting in all its glory. Smoke was drifting through the air in thin veils and the huge orange steam engine made huffing sounds.

Hemione shook her head.

“I'd end up killing Ron, I fear. I still don't know how I'll manage to live in the same house as him for two weeks.”

“The Burrow's big enough to get out of each other's way”, Fred grinned. “I'm still happy you accepted the invitation.”

“Me too”, Hermione said with a smile. “I like your house and your family... well, with one exception...”

“You are the only one who really gets along with Percy though. He'll be delighted to have you around again.”

Hermione smiled.

“I'm gonna look for Draco and the Slytherins. I might come round to your compartment later.”

She entered the train and walked along the aisle peering into the compartments until she found the one that Draco, Pansy, Theo, Blaise, Vincent and Greg occupied.

“Hey”, she said opening the slide door with a smile. “Do you think you've got room for one more person in there?”

“Of course we do”, Blaise said shifting his butt so she could squeeze in between Draco and him.

The welcome was as warm as she had grown accustomed to. Everyone was friendly. Pansy asked, if she'd finished the last books she'd given her, Greg handed her a bag of Bertie Bott's Beans and Vincent asked if she could fix his quill. After a while, Hermione noticed that Draco wasn't saying anything. The blond haired boy was just looking at her, a small smile lingering on his lips. She raised a brow when she met his gaze and the smile turned into a wide grin.

“Didn't think you'd ride home in our compartment, Granger”, he said.

“Didn't think you'd be so narrow minded not to expect me to do exactly that”, she responded.

“Is there any chance I'll hear from you during the holidays?”

He shrugged.

“If my dad's pure-blood owls can find your Muggle home, there sure's a huge chance I'll write to you.”

They both gazed out of the window watching the landscape fly by. Hermione thought how odd it was that not even a year had passed since she had first entered this magical world. It felt as if she had been part of it forever. It also felt as if she had been friends with Fred and Draco forever. It was almost as if she had a second family now. A second home. That moment she realized that, whatever the future might hold in store, she would do whatever was necessary to protect that home and those who belonged to it.

 

THE END (OF BOOK I)

 

_A./N. My lovely readers (oh my God, I really never had that many views and kudos on a story that up to now wasn't even finished), I am so happy you have read this and I truly hope you enjoyed it. There will be more soon. My idea is to start the second part in December. It took me ages to upload this last bit. Life and work somehow got in the way and just ate up any free time I usually use for creative things like writing, sewing and so on. But things will get better again as soon as I have submitted my thesis, so all's well that ends well._

_Thanks to all those who commented on the previous chapters: Your feedback is the fuel that keeps me going.  
_

_Thanks Liz, I will definitely get back to you in terms of beta-ing Book II, if you still want to do it.  
_

_Crystallized Blindness, I hope this last bit kind of made up for Draco not rushing in to rescue them. This is only Book I and he's only a boy, so I guess we should all cut him some slack if he doesn't (yet?) know where his loyalties lie. ;-) Btw I don't think that chess has a lot to do with overall intelligence. The intelligence you need for chess is very unique and doesn't have any use whatsoever in everyday life in my opinion. But then I was raised by a chess playing dad who could never get over the fact that I don't share his passion. I can play but I am much too emotional and not rational enough to become really good at it. But then... Ron isn't rational either, so it's kind of weird how he ended up being a pro.  
_

 


	17. Podfic Links

As LGT is really the most acclaimed thing I have ever written and people keep falling in love with this story, I decided to make a podfic out of this series. Sorry bout any detectable German accent you might find in this. As most of you might know, I am not a native speaker. This "chapter" will be edited until all the links are up.

 

[Chapter 1 - Link to Dropbox mp3](https://www.dropbox.com/s/bcecagu44ks5vz4/lgt1-1.mp3?dl=0)

[Chapter 2 - Link to Dropbox mp3](https://www.dropbox.com/s/5xwtt4hyj8b7n3a/lgt1-2.mp3?dl=0)

[Chapter 3 - Link to Dropbox mp3](https://www.dropbox.com/s/qyvrzrp37nz63cq/lgt1-3.mp3?dl=0)

[Chapter 4 - Link to Dropbox mp3](https://www.dropbox.com/s/z609ufoh2j57pwt/lgt1-4.mp3?dl=0)

[Chapter 5 - Link to Dropbox mp3](https://www.dropbox.com/s/lnwo0uwdlnxxrnd/lgt1-5.mp3?dl=0)

[Chapter 6 - Link to Dropbox mp3](https://www.dropbox.com/s/5gbhn74nosuo6as/lgt1-6.mp3?dl=0)

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think! You can't even fathom how happy it makes me to see new comments in my inbox!
> 
> Obviously, they're 11 and 12 years old here, so the "relationship" tags are rather a future outlook than an actual thing. I just don't want to have people jump at me in a later story because they don't like the pairings I chose. I can also give you a fair warning there will be a few side-pairings that are not that common (just to name one: Pansy/George... and yes, in my context it will make sense)


End file.
